


The Garage

by riveriver



Category: Life and Death - Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blackwater, Canon Compliant, Contains SPOILERS if you haven't read Life and Death, Drama, F/M, Friendship/Love, Post-Canon, SPOILERS SPOILERS, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 62,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23828989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riveriver/pseuds/riveriver
Summary: Adam and Aaron were going to laugh themselves something stupid when they found out that their fifteen-year-old sister had somehow become his best friend. And then they'd probably beat him something stupid.That's what Lee thought he would do, anyway, if some guy who was three-nearly-four years older than Sarah had begun hanging around her like she was his lifeline.
Relationships: Lee Clearwater/Jules Black, Lee Clearwater/Julie Black, Leland "Lee" Clearwater/Julie "Jules" Black, Leland Clearwater/Julie Black
Comments: 11
Kudos: 51





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time Dymond left a review that said, 'Wow, I really liked this one shot. I think it'd be cool to see a fully fledged Julie Black fic from you if you're ever inspired!' and . . . this happened. I have zero willpower when it comes to Blackwater. Warning: dirty and unedited, but it just had to be done.
> 
> Disclaimer: Twilight and its inclusive material (including the alternate world of 'Life and Death') is copyright to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended. This is a WIP at its finest; the title may change at some point. Or not.

**The Garage**

* * *

i.

_you lost your mind in the sound / there's so much more_   
_lauren aquilina, "king"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

Leland Clearwater had harboured a healthy dose of fear of Mrs. Black for as long as he could remember.

The Blacks were considered as good as family within his own, but that didn't mean he found Bonnie any less frightening or difficult. Frightening because she was also Chief of the Quileute tribe; difficult because she wielded more authority than both of his parents put together — even though they were of the Uley and Clearwater lines — and that meant Lee probably would have been in Big Trouble if he'd laughed at her like he wanted to.

He held it in — but it was a close thing. Especially when Mrs. Black sighed down the phone, a sound of the long-suffering, and said, "Julie's locked herself in the garage again . . . and all the tools are in there with her."

Bonnie couldn't see his face, but Lee still found himself biting back a grin lest it be heard in his voice. "Oh. Well, uh, Dad's out fishing but he probably has something in his shed to — uhm, you know, bust her out with."

He pressed his lips together, and hoped Bonnie hadn't detected a single hint of amusement.

Because it _was_ funny — Julie had locked herself in the garage countless times over the years, and every single time the girl seemed to ensure that she took along all the tools from the red house she lived in with her. Anything which might have meant she could stay inside for just that little bit longer, regardless of her reasoning. Regardless of her mother's fury on the other side of the door.

Lee still remembered the first time she'd locked herself in, the day of her father's funeral. Mrs. Black had brought the whole reservation to a ground-breaking halt and had rallied them all into search parties to look for her, until she'd realised the garage doors were locked shut and that there were tracks of combat boots in the mud leading towards it.

(There were dozens and dozens of things in La Push which would never change for as long as he lived — and likely several hundred years after that. Julie living in those battered boots was one of them. Chief Bonnie Black being listened to without question was another.)

These days, nobody worried too much when Julie went missing. The whole reservation knew she had been obsessed with cars ever since her father had died in one, which usually meant that she could usually only ever be found in one of two places: the garage, or the junkyard — whose owner she had been on first-name basis with since she was nine-years old and who allowed her to spend whole afternoons scavenging parts, if only so that she could dismantle them and teach herself how to put them back together again.

(Mr. Whitman didn't allow _anyone_ to wander around his yard. It was the grumpy old man's pride, and he had strict rules about waiting at the rickety cabin whilst he retrieved whatever it was he'd been asked for. But, somehow, it was Julie Black who was, to date, the only person in the world who had ever been seen to stand on the stacked cars and wave cheerfully over the metal fence.)

As she'd gotten older, little Julie Black had steadily become the first person anyone called if something went wrong with their car; she had done so many odd-jobs that people had probably saved hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, and it was only because she was fifteen-years-old and still had to go to school that she wasn't giving the auto-shops all over Washington a run for their money.

She was such a headstrong and high-spirited little thing, forever tearing around the reservation with smudges of grease on her nose or her cheeks (or often both) that Mrs. Black often had trouble keeping her contained.

That much was obvious.

"Can you have a look and bring something over? I don't really want to bother Charlie with this," Bonnie said then, and Lee understood the grave tone of her voice. His parents had gone to Beau Swan's funeral yesterday, but they'd told him and Sarah to stay home. Charlie was family, too — as much as the Blacks were — but nobody had really known his kid.

"I tried to call one of the . . . Well, it doesn't matter." Bonnie sighed again, sounding a little more than irritated. "Anyway, you're the first person who's answered."

"Sure. Yeah. No problem." Bonnie might have been his Chief, but she was nothing if not proud. It was a rare occasion that she allowed herself to ask for a hand with anything, especially since she'd had to start relying on her wheelchair. So Lee said, "I'll be right over."

Which was how he found himself standing with a crowbar in front of Mrs. Black, who now had an air of despair about her as she nodded to the garage door. He tried not to look her in the eye; he'd had to push her from the house over the uneven ground leading up to the garage, and he knew that she wasn't happy about having to ask for help — again.

Bonnie nodded. "Go ahead, son."

It took Lee less than thirty seconds to break in.

Ordinarily, he would have been a little proud of that feat. He'd been working out since Samantha had left him, because he wanted to be able to pack enough power behind his punch the day he decked Elliott so hard the fucking traitor wouldn't ever be able to get up again, but seeing Julie crumpled on the garage floor in a black dress and sobbing her heart out brought him up a little short.

Julie hadn't even seemed to notice the intrusion, but then maybe she hadn't heard him and Bonnie over the stereo blasting hair-metal which she was obviously using to drown everyone and everything out — or to cover-up the sound of her own cries, maybe.

Crying was a bit of a phenomenon for Lee. He'd never seen his mom cry, and he considered himself lucky that his little sister was in a permanent good mood. Sarah was always laughing, always smiling; she'd hardly ever cried as a newborn, and even on the threshold of puberty (which he point-blank refused to accept — he didn't remember ever giving his baby sister permission to grow-up) she hadn't caused anyone a scrap of trouble.

Lee wondered if Adam and Aaron had ever thought the same thing about Julie.

He'd just always figured that she was as tough as Bonnie, so seeing her so upset was . . . disarming, to say the least, and even her mom seemed at a little bit of a loss. It took the woman a second or two to gather her wits, and twice as long to cover the sadness in her eyes before she nudged Lee with her cane and pointed it at the blaring stereo.

Julie nearly jumped out of her skin when the music was abruptly silenced. "What—"

She looked at Lee, blinking furiously through her tears as he gave her a sort of grim, apologetic smile and looked to Bonnie.

Julie gulped as she got to her feet, her face flushed and eyes bloodshot as if she'd been crying for days.

"Mom—" she started, but then her face twisted miserably and she began crying again. " _Mom."_

Mrs. Black's voice was uncharacteristically soft. "Oh, Jules." She reached her hand out, and Julie blindly stumbled towards it, her dark hair plastered to her face and her black dress creased beyond measure.

"It's all my _fault,_ " Julie sobbed. She took deep, gasping breaths, fighting against an invisible force which eventually sent her dropping to her knees. "Mom, I didn't — I didn't _mean_ to, I'm _sorry_ , I'm so sorry—"

Lee didn't think about it as he dropped the crowbar and swept the girl up in his arms, instinct driving him as even her mother leant forward, looking for all the world as if she were prepared to throw herself out of her wheelchair and catch her daughter. Bonnie could do naught but look on helplessly as Julie sobbed loudly against him, suddenly clinging to his shoulders and shivering violently whilst burying her face into his chest, soaking his shirt, seeking any comfort she could find.

Julie cried all the way to the house. She cried as Lee set her down on her bed and had to gently prise her fingers out of his shirt, one by one, over and over, gently urging her to stop grabbing on and just _let go, Jules, c'mon kid, let go—_

It was half an hour later, after giving in to Jules and letting her cling to him for just a bit longer until she had exhausted herself, that he was able to follow Bonnie out of the bedroom and back down the hall.

He looked down at his shirt, crumpled and soaked through. "I didn't realise she knew Charlie's boy so well."

Mrs. Black sighed. "She didn't," she said, looking away. "Charlie's boy — Beau . . . Did you know he died in a car crash?"

Oh. _Oh._

"Oh," Lee replied lamely, unable to find the words that might explain how he understood now why Jules was grieving so badly. It had only been six years or so since her father had died the same way.

Mrs. Black began pushing herself down the narrow hallway. "You remember we had that old truck? The Chevy?" she asked, though she did not wait for an answer, did not look back to see if he was following her. "Well, I can't really drive anymore, so I let Jules work on it."

Lee didn't understand, but nodded to Bonnie's back anyway.

"You know what she's like," she continued as they entered the living room and faced one another. "She pulled the whole damn thing apart and rebuilt it good as new so we could sell it."

Lee still couldn't see the punchline of her story, and it must have shown in his face because Bonnie sighed as she pulled on the brake of her chair, bracing her arms against the sides of it, settling in the middle of the room with a grim expression on her face.

"Charlie bought it," she explained. "He gave it to Beau as a welcome home present, of sorts, and . . . well . . . I guess Jules blames herself — I didn't really think about it until just now. Didn't piece it together." Bonnie looked down at her hands, frowning to herself. "But . . . I should have. She was the same way after George died. She helped him work on the wagon a few times, you know, and then . . ."

Bonnie couldn't finish her sentence. She didn't have to. Lee knew how that story ended.

He swallowed thickly. He'd never been much good at sadness, at sympathy — and he was so angry all the time now that there wasn't room for much more than that, but Julie's heartbreak had left him feeling so heavy and weak at the same time that he wasn't sure he could stand to listen to anything else Mrs. Black was prepared to tell him.

And yet, he couldn't help but say, "But that wasn't her fault."

It was a struggle to keep his voice low from the strange indignance he felt, because it wasn't fair that Jules was beating herself up so badly, it wasn't fair that she was fifteen and feeling so awful about something beyond her control. She was so _young_. "She didn't kill George — Mr. Black," he corrected himself. "That wasn't her fault any more than Charlie's boy dying is, surely."

Mrs. Black met his eyes again, her chapped lips twisting sadly like she understood his aggravation. "I know. But she doesn't see it that way. Maybe . . . maybe one day," she said, eyes darkening a fraction with strange shadows. "But hopefully — hopefully that won't happen now, so she won't need to."

"What won't happen?"

Bonnie shook her head and waved a hand. "Nothing, nothing." She sat a little straighter in her chair. "Thank you — for coming over so quickly," she said then, and Lee knew it was his cue to leave.

Lee turned for the door and tried not to think about Bonnie turning so weird — weird like his mom and dad sometimes turned, too. Almost as weird as Old Quil Ateara as she dithered about the reservation and looked at the kids like she expected more out of them. His little sister was known to scamper off in the opposite direction whenever she saw the older woman.

"Sure," he replied, trying to make his voice as light as possible. "No problem. If you need anything else—"

"I'll be sure to call. Thanks, Lee."

He knew that she wouldn't.

Leland sat in his car for a while after that, the engine running idly as he thought and thought and thought — about what Bonnie had said, how upset Jules had been, how furious he was at _everything,_ all the damn time — and when he finally drove away he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of Samantha in his rear view mirror.

But when he blinked and looked back, she was gone.


	2. ii

ii.

_orange dances around in your empty eyes / and i can see straight into your soul_   
_birdy, "shine"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere."

"Oh. Okay. Can I come?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because."

Leland tried not to hate himself as Sarah's face fell, and he had to force himself to look away from her blatant disappointment as he started the car and backed out of their driveway. She always made him feel guilty when she pouted her lips like that, and the little punk knew exactly what effect she had when she did it. Few could shred his willpower like his little sister, and Sarah wielded the power like nothing else when she wanted something.

He briefly thought about shouting out of the window for her, but . . . after how inconsolable Julie had been last time, he didn't really think that having little Sarah hot on her heels right now was what Julie would want. He wasn't even sure that he was going to be so welcomed himself.

Lee rolled up the window and drove away, trying to squash his guilt as he stepped on the gas and ignored Sarah watching him with her perfected forlorn expression.

He knew that she was lonely. There weren't that many kids on the reservation around who were the same age as his little sister was, so it always seemed that she wanted to be wherever he was, wanted to do whatever he was doing. Hell, sometimes she hung off his every word as if he spoke the gospel, traipsing around in his shadow and waiting for something special to happen — because she was so certain that it would, so long as she was with him.

She acted much the same when she was with Julie. Sarah absolutely _adored_ Julie. Because Julie didn't treat her like just another kid, and because Julie included her whenever she was with her own friends on First Beach. (Emma Call and Quil Ateara didn't seem to think that much of Sarah from what he had seen, but that never put her off when Julie remained patient and kind regardless of what her friends thought.)

Lee had always thought Julie was so nice to his sister because she knew how it felt to be excluded. He himself was guilty of making her feel that way, when she had wanted to be included in whatever games he was up to with the twins. But now the twins were gone — Adam was enjoying a full-ride to college and Aaron was shacked up with some surfer chick from Hawaii, _married_ at that — and Lee guessed that now made him just as lonely as Sarah was.

(After all, it wasn't like he had Sam anymore, so he supposed it was his own fault — that he was lonely. He'd never had that many friends to begin with — he'd always been fine having just Adam and Aaron and Elliott growing up — but then the twins had found their new lives and Elliott wasn't really around that much to begin with anyway, not really, not until he moved down from Neah Bay, so Lee had been quite happy to make Sam the centre of his damn world.

Then she'd found a new life, too, taking Elliott with her, and Lee had been left with nothing. So, yeah, it was totally his own fault, though somehow that didn't make it any easier or make him feel any better about it.)

Lee hadn't seen the Blacks for a week — not even around the reservation, which was weird in itself. The Blacks were as good as family, after all, and Bonnie was the head of the tribal council. They were _always_ around.

It didn't sit well. It hadn't since he'd driven away last time, and in his quiet hours he had found (when he'd not been planning Elliott's untimely demise, anyway) that he had been tearing himself up thinking about Julie. Her sadness had resonated with him so deeply that he didn't think he could bear knowing he'd left her to descend into the same dark place that he was in.

Sam might have left him with so little, but Lee still thought that he was a decent person. That he _could_ be a decent person, if he really tried, because honestly the only other people he wanted to drag down with him were Sam and Elliott — not some fifteen-year-old kid who he'd witnessed cry herself into exhaustion. Julie was the same as Sarah, after all, as much the twin's little sister as Sarah was his — and with the twins not around anymore then it was his job to look out for Julie now, wasn't it? It was the same as he knew they would have looked out for Sarah if things were different. Different like proposing to Sam before she left for college.

(Which he hadn't, and she hadn't.)

A week was reasonable, he'd decided. Long enough. Besides, he'd left the crowbar in the garage, and though he didn't think that his dad would be missing it anytime soon, he had decided that he should probably go back and get it. You know, just in case Julie decided to barricade herself in her beloved garage again and Mrs. Black called.

All of which was highly likely. Lee had heard his mom on the phone with Bonnie several times over the past week. The conversations were always hushed, and Lee never missed the glances his mom and dad shared when they quietly discussed the phone calls afterwards. He often tried to listen in, and knew from what he had managed to hear amongst the whispers that Julie's misery wasn't improving any.

Lee continued to try and justify it to himself as he drove to their house. He could have walked, maybe even ran the short way, but he was so wary of bumping into Sam or Elliott these days that it was better to have a quick getaway lest he do anything stupid when he saw them.

Elliott was another source of the concerned glances of his parents, their hushed conversations, but Lee made a conscious effort to remove himself from the room when _that_ happened — especially after that bear attack.

Sometimes when Lee did remember how to be a decent human being, he thought that he should go and visit his cousin who had once been as much his brother than anything else. But then, what kind of brother stole your girlfriend-almost-fiancee and moved in with her the very next day?

No. Screw being decent, being human. Bear attack or not, Lee was definitely going to pummel Elliott the next time he saw him. He'd been lifting all those weights and going for twice-daily runs for a reason. He fell into bed bone-tired most days, glad that something other than his heart was aching.

People probably thought he'd buffed up because he was trying to win Samantha back, but even Lee knew that was a lost cause. He'd never take her back, anyway, not after she had so unceremoniously ended their three-year relationship after her two-week disappearance. She'd probably been carrying on with Elliott behind his back for months and months, if they were already living together. It was pretty obvious.

Lee's hands tightened around the steering wheel. Sam had changed so drastically after those two weeks. The hair he'd loved so much looked like it had been hacked off to her ears, and she suddenly looked so _angry_ all the time that he honestly wondered if she was really happy with Elliott. He hoped that she wasn't. He hoped that they were miserable, that they—

Well. Whatever. It didn't matter anymore. It wasn't his problem. _They_ weren't his problem.

The biggest problem he had right now was trying to forget the both of them, which was pretty hard considering they lived on the reservation and Sam was running about with her new girl-squad all the damn time. He snorted at the thought. Jade Cameron and Paula Lahote looked just as upset with the world as she was, which from a distance seemed like the only thing which kept them together aside from their matching haircuts and glorious legs that went over forever and ever.

If Lee had been feeling particularly mean, he would have shacked up with Paula Lahote by now; the girl had a reputation which stretched from La Push to Neah Bay and back — it would be _so_ easy to get his own back, and in his darkest moments he had tried to picture himself with her . . . but sooner or later Paula always turned into Sam, and Lee was left feeling even worse than he had before.

Last week, as he'd tried to coax her fingers from his shirt and calm her down, Lee had wondered if Julie had locked herself in the garage overnight for a similar reason — perhaps she'd had a massive crush on the Swan kid and planned to pull a Miss Havisham in her funeral dress, but then Bonnie had said she blamed herself for the kid's death, and, well . . . Lee's problems had suddenly seemed quite small in comparison. Aside from grandparents, he hadn't really lost anybody like that before. His grief over Sam was nothing, really.

And it wasn't really grief, was it? He hated her too much that.

Lee huffed as he pulled on the parking break and jumped out of the car. The garage door was wide open, and he quickly spied the crowbar — propped up against the wall, waiting to be claimed — but he walked straight past it, following the sound of hair-metal which had greeted him once already and headed inside.

Julie was sat cross-legged on the floor with her back to him when he entered, her tools lined out neatly in front of her. Go figure.

She held up a wrench, inspecting it closely before rubbing at it half-heartedly with her cloth, and then placed it inside the red toolbox at her side as if it was one of her most priceless possessions.

It probably was, he thought. Julie had always handled anything resembling something mechanical with a great deal of reverence, even when she'd been littler and had been fiddling with screws and springs at the dinner table. He'd always thought it a little bit weird, until he'd made the connection between George dying and her sudden fascination with fixing cars — just about the same time the Rez kids started getting jealous that she had wrapped Mr. Whitman from the scrapyard around her finger.

Lee walked further into the garage, minding her precious tools on the floor. He hoped that she wouldn't jump out of her skin like last time. The music was so loud that she probably couldn't even hear herself think.

When she finally looked up after noticing him, her every movement slow and painful, he tried to smile by way of hello. But the effort felt a little bit strange on his face, and he realised that he couldn't remember the last time that he'd laughed.

Julie stared blankly back at him, her red-rimmed eyes unblinking, looking as if she'd forgotten how to laugh, too.

She looked awful. Thin. So small in the blue-grey Mariners sweatshirt which swamped her, even though it was early spring outside and it was one of Washington's better days. Her long, dark hair fell in a heavy curtain around her, almost pooling on the concrete floor it was so long, so lifeless and dull as she was. Lee thought that if he hadn't known any better, he would have figured that she was sick.

Julie turned back down to her work. Almost as if she'd barely registered that he was there. As if she didn't care.

Shit. He'd take the crying over this.

Lee reached down and shut the music off, much like he had the week before. This time, though, she didn't jump and only seemed to retreat further into her sweatshirt.

He swallowed. "Julie . . ." The silence after the world was palpable without the beat of the CD playing. "Julie, when was the last time you ate?"

Shit, he sounded like his mom — Holly had asked him the same question not long after Sam had broken up with him, when he'd been _really_ bad, but this . . . this was worse.

Julie reached for a flat-head screwdriver. She twirled it in her fingers with something that could have passed as a second of faint interest before she carefully laid it down in her toolbox. She didn't look at him again.

"Beau's dead," she said, her words clear but her voice flat.

"Yes," was all he could reply.

Julie nodded, and picked up another screwdriver. There might have been some kind of order to what she was doing, but Lee had never been much of a grease-monkey so he couldn't figure it out. His skills stretched to being able to change a tyre or, if he really needed to, maybe a headlight.

He looked around the garage, wondering how long Julie had been holed up in it this time. It smelled musty, but not horribly so — like leather and oil and a bit of grease, a faint hit of gas, and it was warm from the rare sunlight beating down on the aluminium roof. It was . . . nice, he realised. Comfortable. Slightly familiar, like home was.

"Didn't lock the door today, huh?" he tried to joke lightly.

Julie didn't answer. She just continued quietly sorting through her tools, twisting them this way and that in the light streaming in from behind her before putting them away.

She was in a bad way. And it _hurt_ to see it. He'd grown up with this kid; their moms were best friends and had swapped taking care of them as children so often that sometimes he hadn't known who would be picking them up from school. Their dads had been just as close, before Mr. Black had died — ever since they'd been kids themselves. They'd always gone fishing together, had always made an event of baseball and basketball and football games even if they were only able to listen to the commentaries on the radio.

Lee focused on the rest of the garage: the worn workbenches, empty gas barrels, the few rusty garden chairs folded up against the wall. And there, smack bang in the middle, something which he could only presume to be a car underneath a dust sheet, though one side looked as if it were higher than other.

"What's that?" he asked anyway, taking a few steps towards it. He looked back at Julie, but she didn't seem to be listening. "Julie? Jules," he pressed, feeling a strange sort of panic rising as he looked at her. "Tell me what this is."

God, he sounded desperate. And, damn him, he almost jumped for joy when she dragged her eyes up, vague recognition sparking in them as they passed between him and what he pointed at.

With that same, dull voice of hers, rough and throaty, she said, "It's a car."

Lee almost rolled his eyes. Almost. But she was still looking up at him, and maybe it was because she could see that he was begging for her to say something else that she added, "Volkswagen."

"Oh, cool. You mind if I have a look?" He didn't really care either way, not about the car or whether she didn't want him to have a peek — at least she might talk again if she didn't want him to see, but to his dismay Julie didn't protest as he yanked off the sheet covering it.

The little red car had been jacked up on its left side. And, almost as if Julie were in the middle of working on it, there was a skateboard poking out from underneath it, and a few loose nuts and bolts nearby with a can of grease without its top on.

No — not as if she were in the middle of working on it, but as if she had given up half-way through and thrown the dust sheet on so that she would stop looking at it.

When Lee turned back to her, Julie had uncurled herself from the floor just long enough to stretch and punch the stereo back to life before she snapped back into herself, crossing her legs and hunching over her tools again. The music filled every corner of the garage, a mindless scream of lyrics and drums and guitar that vibrated off the walls.

This was bad.

Lee steeled himself to be smacked as shut the music off again. But it didn't come, so he pushed his luck even further and crouched in front of her, ducking down and trying to catch her attention.

"Come on, Jules — give me something, kid. Anything."

Her red eyes were glistening when they looked at him. She swallowed audibly, and her lifeless mask slipped for just a fraction as she rubbed at an eye against the back of her hand before it fell listlessly in her lap. "Like what?"

Well — hell if he knew. He looked down at her tools between them, searching as he leaned his arms against his knees. "Why don't you tell me about the car?" That seemed safe.

She looked down, her hair draping around her face. "It doesn't work."

"Nothing you build _doesn't work,_ " he protested with mock horror.

"The wagon didn't work," she replied quietly, voice dropping impossibly lower with every word. "The truck didn't work."

Lee's chest tightened. "Julie—"

"They died." Tears dropped onto the concrete floor between them, over her tools, and she wiped at her eyes again. Hurriedly, this time, erasing them as quickly as they had appeared.

"I know." He would have reached out for her if he hadn't been convinced she would pull away.

A long pause. "I killed them, didn't I?"

"No, Julie. No."

"I did." She sniffed. "I touched the brake pads on the wagon and I touched the truck and if I hadn't then they'd still be here and — and—"

"Jules, no. Stop. _Stop._ " He did reach out then, and her ragged breathing cut off with a gasp as he put his hand on her shoulder and tried to keep the rest of himself steady. She was so tiny that his fingers were almost splayed over her shoulder blade. "You didn't do any of that."

She lifted her chin and opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. "You didn't. I promise."

There was steely disbelief in her eyes, but thank God that there was _something_ , and she frowned ever so slightly as she said, "You don't know that. You don't even know what a tappet is."

"Kid," he breathed, laughing in spite of himself, "I don't think anyone but you knows what the hell that is."

Julie sniffed again, twisting her fingers together. "S'not hard."

"So tell me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can see the 'canon' Life and Death counterparts here: twilightsaga dot fandom dot com (/) wiki (/) Life_and_Death_to_Twilight_differences. I still maintain that Julie should have a more biblical name like Judith or Joanna or even Ruth, but what do I know. Hope it helps!


	3. iii

_iii._

_your memories are sceneries for things you said but never really meant_   
_the 1975, "i always wanna die (sometimes)"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

He spent the rest of that rare, sunny spring day inside of the Black's garage.

He learned what a tappet was — and valve stems and return springs, and that if tappets became 'noisy' it was because something else had worn over time.

. . . or something.

Honestly, he wasn't paying too much attention. He was just relieved that Jules was talking again _,_ and not just _talking_ but _offering information_ , even when he stopped asking and stopped prodding her for explanations.

(It was true that _begging_ may have been a more accurate word for what he had been doing, but she had really scared the shit out of him. In all the years he'd known the girl, for however many times he had seen her every week for as long as he could remember, he had never seen her like that before — or even anyone else for that matter, unless he counted looking in the mirror. And he tried to do _that_ as infrequently as possible.)

As daylight eventually began to fade behind them, Julie was in the middle of a lengthy description about her car's cylinder head when her voice trailed off and she bit down on her lip.

Her cheeks deepened with colour as she said, "I'm boring you, aren't I."

A little bit. "Of course not."

"You're not really saying much."

"Sorry. You were saying." Lee pointed deep inside of the car's engine, which not long ago he decided had magic powers — because whenever Julie put her hands on it, even to skim her fingers over the battery, everything around her became secondary and any tension building in her shoulders suddenly dropped. _The Rabbit,_ she called it. "Cylinder head."

"That's the engine block."

"Oh." He pointed higher up to what was (probably) the cylinder head and looked for confirmation, his grin a little rueful. Julie rolled her eyes.

"That's the head gasket."

"I knew that."

"Uh-huh." She sounded doubtful as she crossed her arms and looked at him with raised eyebrows, narrowing her eyes slightly. He supposed she was trying to be intimidating, but she stood at a whole five-eight of nothing compared to his height of six-three. "I know what you're trying to do, Lee."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he professed with false innocence, turning his eyes back on the engine he knew nothing about — and likely never would. Sports were his thing, not cars. That was all Julie's. "Is _this_ the cylinder head?"

"Now you're just being annoying."

Lee looked back to her, expecting to see frustration written all over her face and finding himself five minutes from being kicked out. But Julie was smiling and shaking her head, showing off the smallest of dimples in her left cheek. She resembled the twins so much for a second that it almost hurt.

"Do you even like cars?" she asked.

"Uh . . . I like driving?"

"That is _so_ not the same," Jules huffed, though she still seemed amused. She pushed her hair back from her face and left a smudge of dark grease on her forehead, which Lee was mostly definitely _not_ going to tell her was there — not that she would have probably cared, anyway.

"How would you know?" He'd remembered how very easy it was to tease her. Almost as easy as teasing Sarah. It was just as easy to charm small smiles from her, too, though for some reason Lee didn't think that Julie would squeal her indignation or stamp her foot quite the same way as his little sister. "You don't even have a licence."

"I'm fifteen," Julie protested, pouting. Lee smirked.

"Exactly."

She pulled another face at him, scrunching her nose tight, and Lee laughed. It felt a little foreign to smile and laugh — he hadn't done a great deal of it over these last few (okay — several) months, though it was slowly getting easier; today, especially, was probably the least depressing day he'd had in a long, long while, all things considered. He hadn't even thought about Sam.

(Now _that_ was progress.)

Julie turned back to her engine and sighed, a little forlorn.

"It doesn't matter anyway. This heap of . . . _junk—_ " she said, seeming as if it had taken great difficulty to use the word — because no matter how scathing she attempted to sound, it was evident how much Julie _loved_ her car, "—needs a master cylinder, and I've got about as much chance of getting one then you have of understanding the difference."

"Please. How difficult could it be?" Lee waved a hand, entirely full of bravado, because he was turning eighteen soon and had some kind of dignity to retain, after all. He wasn't about to be outsmarted by this kid—

—who snorted disbelievingly, and just said, "About as difficult as asking you to get a monkey wrench from my toolbox and being passed the right one."

"Ouch."

Julie snickered and pushed lightly at his elbow, moving him out of the way so she could drop the hood. She did it slowly, gently, and with just as much reverence she had been holding her tools with. And when it locked, hardly making a sound, she smiled to herself, her cheeks stretching further than they had all day, her dimples more defined.

"If you ever get your hands on a master cylinder for a 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit," she added, still finding the whole thing clearly amusing indeed, "then I promise to never laugh at you for not knowing what a monkey wrench is, okay?"

Lee looked down at her and bit back his own smile. The smudge on her forehead was huge. "You have yourself a deal, kid. I'll even pretend to understand how important your cylinder is."

"Put it this way," she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world (and maybe it was — to her, anyway) whilst she wiped her hands on her sweatshirt, "if I don't get one, then I can never drive it. So . . . pretty important."

"Not that you can drive anyway," he pointedly reminded her.

"Not legally."

"Which you would never do, of course."

"Not in front of Charlie at least," Julie replied easily, throwing him a conspiratorial wink. The grin which followed and began to split across her face, however, died before it took form. And just as quickly, the dark shadows which had been in her eyes when he'd found her a few hours ago reappeared.

Maybe they'd never left, he thought. Maybe Julie was just as good at pretending to the rest of the world as he was, as he had been all these months. Because, sure, he was angry — _everyone_ knew that he was angry — but what the world didn't know was how miserable and tired and just how _done_ with it all he actually was.

And that was a good thing. Lee was pretty sure if his mom or dad figured it out, they would have sent him to a shrink by now. So let them think that he was angry, that he was channelling that into running and other things, other _productive_ things, when all he was really doing was exhausting himself to the point he couldn't think in a straight line anymore.

He didn't want to think. If he did, if he _had,_ then . . . well, things might have been very different indeed, because Sam had been his whole damn life and now she wasn't.

Now she was Elliott's.

So much for not thinking about Sam.

Lee banished them from his mind and tried to keep his voice as light as it had been as he had said, "You know Charlie would turn a blind eye anyway."

Julie only shrugged her response, retreating further back into herself with every step she took away from her car and back towards her toolbox. Lee had to swallow his rising, almost-forgotten panic at the sight.

"Have you got sneakers?" he asked suddenly.

Julie frowned and stared down at her dirty combat boots which had probably seen more wear than Lee's running shoes. But when she looked back up, still frowning slightly, she nodded. "Yeah. Why?"

"I wanna show you something."

* * *

Julie Black's equivalent of burying her head in the sand may have been engines and metal and grease, but Lee's was running.

He didn't know if it was going to help — if he should be encouraging it, if he should have herded her inside and made her talk properly with Bonnie, but he could only think of being forced to sit down and be honest with his own parents and figured that Julie would have probably ended up running anyway.

He would have.

To her credit, Julie didn't ask any questions as he limbered up and then pulled her into a run beside him and steered her into the late evening. All too soon he could see the exertion in her face, how she took two strides for every one of his, how she could nothing but focus on her breathing. And, as they rounded the corner of the Tribal School, Lee knew that Julie understood.

She didn't complain that he did not slow down for her or keep checking to see if she was keeping up. If anything, she seemed to push herself harder, drenching her sweatshirt and the back of her neck, her feet pounding determinedly against the streets and the dirt and the grass until—

"Stop," she gasped, forty minutes in. "Stop, stop."

Lee jogged back to her side, keeping his feet moving as he stood before her in the absence of any streetlight and his blood pounded in his ears. "I'm impressed, kid," he told her, panting slightly, "I thought you would be a goner after ten minutes."

"You're cruel. Lethal. Not human, _"_ she breathed, gripping her sides, and a delirious laugh bubbled in her throat as she bent over. "I can't believe that you . . ." She grimaced as she tried to straighten up, and when she rubbed her face the grease-mark which had been there before wiped clean off with her sweat. "You think this is _fun?_ "

"No," he admitted perhaps a little too honestly as he wiped his own forehead, "but it's better than whatever you were thinking of doing, right?"

Jules seemed torn between a shrug and something else whilst she tried to catch her breath still. "I feel like I can't think at all."

"Great, isn't it?" He grinned in spite of himself, in spite of how he thought it might just very well come back to bite him on his ass one day. He didn't care. He _lived_ for this feeling now, this exhausted exhilaration which kept him breathing.

"Is it?"

"Come on," he said. "You'll feel worse if you stop like this. But we'll go slower now. Promise."

Julie groaned as she picked up her feet. "I hate you."

"I understand," he replied sombrely.

He knew she was lying, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually follow www dot twilightlexicon dot com (/) the-lexicon/timeline to the absolute letter, but . . . yeah, heads-up, that's honestly not going to be happening for this fic.
> 
> Also, Sentinel10 raised a really interesting point in the reviews about the gender-reversal of these characters and how "emotions coming from a male translate differently in the same character". It's amazing what changes/stereotypes are already resulting from Leah being an older boy and Jacob being a younger girl without me actually having made any drastic alterations to their 'character' or canon events. I hope these characters can still stand well on their own without the comparisons to their counterparts.


	4. iv

_iv._

_i'm never backing down / because tomorrow's a new day and everything can change_   
_red, "best is yet to come"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

It was nearing the end of May by the time Lee had settled, almost unthinkingly, into an entirely new routine.

One which did not include so much wallowing as it normally did, anyway.

He woke up. He went for his morning run. He spent the day at school. He walked home from school — always with Sarah and sometimes with Julie, and sometimes even with her friends Quil and Emma.

He did his homework. Then he went for a run, sometimes with Julie and sometimes without — and if she didn't join him, he would always swing by the garage on his way home again, even if only to wave. He ate dinner. He planned Sam and Elliott's demise (strictly between the hours of eight and nine only, because he was trying to limit his amount of wallowing which had been on the verge of consuming him only several weeks before). He showered. He went to bed.

Wake up. Repeat.

The weekends only differed in that they revolved completely around working out and keeping his mind so busy that he had no time to stop, no time to think. That, and being in the Black's garage — time always spent with Julie, sometimes with Sarah, and sometimes Quil and Emma.

Wake up. Repeat.

Wake up. Repeat.

That was, until, his junior year came to an end (a day after his eighteenth birthday, which thankfully passed without grand affair at his own insistence) and he had suddenly found himself without routine and far more free time than he knew what to do with.

On the first day of summer vacation, Lee supposed that he was going to have to go and get a life now.

Or something.

Summer was going to suck like hell.

* * *

A few weeks later, Lee had pretty much convinced himself that Adam and Aaron were going to laugh themselves something stupid when they found out that their fifteen-year-old sister had somehow become his best friend. And then they'd probably beat him something stupid.

That's what he thought he would do, anyway, if some guy who was three-nearly-four years older than Sarah had begun hanging around her like she was his lifeline.

Had they lived anywhere else — in Forks, maybe — the whole thing might have been a cause for concern. It was a whole different way of life over there. Thankfully, though, most people on the reservation didn't see anything strange in it. The population was so small that there was nothing odd in kids of all ages banding together; there were so few of them of a similar age that people often didn't throw a second look at those kinds of differences.

Which was good, because he'd only just begun to shake off their sympathetic glances ( _that poor boy — she left him for his cousin, you know_ ). But Lee knew what people _could_ think if they looked a little too closely, and suddenly being eighteen seemed to have a lot more weight to it than seventeen had.

It didn't matter that he was still hopelessly in love with Samantha, that he loved her as much as he hated her and that was why all those plans he'd made for her and Elliott never came to fruition. It didn't matter that, although she had never admitted as much, Julie had been crushing on a kid who was now dead. It didn't matter that she was so cut up with grief and lost her train of thought because of it most days.

People wouldn't see that, would they?

(He'd stayed away for nearly a whole week because of it — that fear. But he'd descended into a whole new level of misery without Julie's muttered cursing over an engine, or her freaking out over how her toolbox was a complete mess which kept him distracted. By the end of it his mom had looked at him with more concern in her eyes than he had been able to deal with and she'd said, _Have you fallen out with Julie?_

_No. Why?_

_Oh. I just thought . . . nothing. Bonnie said you hadn't swung by for a few days, that's all._

So he'd headed right on over, if only to prove a point — though it was more than that, really — and he hadn't tried to avoid Julie again.)

Luckily Julie had very little interest in being away from her garage a lot of the time. And if she had ever thought any of these things about age differences or had noticed sceptical looks being thrown in her direction, she'd never said anything about it.

Lee had a feeling that she didn't care about any of that shit anyway.

She hadn't quite yet forgiven herself for all she thought she was to blame, and sometimes when she was having a particularly hard day she barely uttered more than two words at a time. She'd also developed a little bit of a temper since he last remembered — one that was rough around the edges and made her pull at her hair sometimes — but that was okay. Anger was better than the shadows in her eyes, better than the crying, and it was something that Lee could deal with.

He was familiar with it. He knew how rage and sadness blurred things most days because, despite all of his efforts to feel otherwise, he felt the same. He understood anger.

(Although his answer was usually to tell her to put her shoes on and start running, but it seemed to help. Julie had even invested in a decent pair of sneakers, and they ran farther every time.)

Overall, though, Julie didn't shrink into her sweatshirt as much as anymore, and there was more life in her than there had been in a long while. There were more good days than there were bad, because underneath all of that Julie was this cheerful little spitfire of a girl who Lee genuinely liked.

She loved cars with scary passion. She smiled from ear to ear at inappropriate remarks (and she snorted soda through her nose at _really_ dirty jokes). She had the same humour as the twins, who she missed as much as he did. She was funny, she was kind, and she was patient with his little sister when Sarah tagged along.

Once Lee had gotten over himself, over his paranoia about what everyone else thought, Lee barely remembered her age, he forgot about his, and he enjoyed spending time with her. She didn't even seem to care that he monopolised most of her free time, or that sometimes he was in a bad mood, too.

He'd almost forgotten what having a friend was like. It was . . . well, it was nice.

It shouldn't have thrown him, then, when the phone rang early one morning and Jules asked for a favour. Because friends asked friends for favours, and he guessed that he'd never really thought that Jules considered him just as much as her friend as he did her.

"Hey!" She sounded kind of hyper. Bright, and happy, as if she had been awake for hours already. "I didn't think you'd be up yet. Can you drive over to the garage today?"

"Really? You only just had your head under the hood last week," he reminded her, envisioning a whole day of sitting in the rusty lawn chair he had claimed for his own and pretending to feel threatened when she jabbed a screwdriver at him for still not knowing what a spark plug was.

"Yes, but I need you to drive me somewhere." A beat. "Please."

"Still having trouble with that licence, huh?" he teased.

"Shut up," she snapped, but it lacked any real heat and he smiled. She was probably rolling her eyes. "When will you get here?"

"Uh. An hour? I was actually just heading out for a—"

"A run," she finished for him, all too-knowingly. "Fine, fine. Only because I know you get grouchy when you don't get to parade yourself about before lesser mortals at least once a day."

"I don't—"

"See you in an hour. Don't be late." And then she hung up the phone.

It occurred to Lee when he was six songs into his workout playlist that he hadn't asked Jules where they were going. The garage was the go-to place. Sure, they ran along the beaches and had tiny bonfires sometimes, and they'd even spent a few hours at the Ateara's place last week, but — they never really _went_ anywhere, and never far.

Huh. Maybe she wanted to go shopping in Port Angeles, or something.

Shopping. Julie.

Lee snorted to himself and kept running.

* * *

The scrapyard on the far edges of the reservation was completely deserted, save for Mr. Whitman who welcomed Julie beyond the line of his cabin with open arms.

When Lee moved to follow, however, it looked like the old man was going to burst. His face turned a little red, his bushy eyebrows bunched together, and the warning in his eyes was enough to make Lee falter a step.

(He hadn't been all that surprised when Julie had hopped in the car fifteen minutes ago with various tools hanging out of her pockets and told him where they were going. Apparently, she didn't trust herself to walk out with only as much as she could carry — and, she'd told him, she hadn't visited in so long that there was bound to be _something_ which had spent longer unloved than it should have been.

Lee had thought that she kind of sounded like she was talking about dogs in shelters when she said it, even though a husk of some kind of car was what she'd undoubtedly been imagining.)

"It's okay that Lee comes along, right?" Julie asked, displaying her dimples like they were a weapon.

Mr. Whitman didn't look as angry at the sight of them, but still, he said, "You don't usually bring your friends. You know the rules."

"I know," she replied, slightly simperingly — so much so that Lee had to fight a laugh. "But Mr. Clearwater said that—"

"Saul?"

"Yes," Julie breathed, smiling in her relief, just at the same time Lee stupidly asked, "You know my dad?"

"Got a lot of time for that man," Mr. Whitman admitted, sounding a little begrudging about it — if only because it meant that he found himself stepping aside and nodding. "Well, okay. But you stick with young Miss. Black now, you hear? Don't go wandering off or nothing."

Julie's smile widened to breaking point and she pulled on Lee's arm, urging him on just in case the man was going to change his mind.

"Thank you, Stanley, he won't!" she promised, and she ushered them both out of sight, still grinning widely, pleased with herself and wholly triumphant.

" _Stanley?_ " Lee couldn't help but blurt once they were out of earshot.

"Knew mentioning your dad would work," she remarked lightly, already becoming distracted by everything around her. Metal, metal and more metal. "Same happened when I mentioned mine."

Lee chanced a glance over his shoulder, back towards the cabin where Mr. Whitman kept guard over his beloved scrap. It was strange to think that the old man had a first name, when his reputation had always superseded such trivial things.

"I always thought you'd just charmed your way in. Nobody ever gets past that cabin."

Julie flashed a grin, only taking her eyes off the rows and rows of cars for a second. "Who says I didn't? I don't just piggy-back off my family's name, you know," she said a little reprovingly.

Lee snickered. Of course she didn't. "Whatever you did, you did _something_. And _for_ something, I bet."

She threw her hands out towards the mounds of scrap before them. "Duh."

It meant nothing to him — he was unable to distinguish any difference between anything he saw. He might as well have been on another planet, but Julie walked with purpose beside him as she steered them to the far end of the yard.

"What are we looking for?"

"I'll know when I see it."

"Helpful," he retorted, scowling as he stepped over something which looked rather dangerous. He didn't live in combat boots like Julie did. "No wonder he never lets anyone in here. This place is a death trap."

Jules laughed, carefree and damn near jubilant as she always was with oil and metal around her.

"Don't be such a girl!" she laughed, skipping easily over a bit of stray piping protruding dangerously from the wet ground. "Go and play dress-up with Emma and Quil instead, if you want. Quil would _love_ that."

Lee snorted. Quil was Julie's second cousin and tripped over her feet a lot when he was around, often forgetting how to speak. It was kind of annoying; he had to avoid asking the girl anything direct lest she choke on thin air.

After a minute of treading precariously, following only the sound of her excitement, Lee dared look up from his feet and saw Julie looking gleefully at what he could only describe as a heap of junk.

"Pop the hood," she instructed, already circling her prize and tapping the flat of her spanner against her palm as she considered it.

Lee peered through its broken window, twisting his nose at the smell of weather-worn, damp seats inside. "Pass."

"Oh, come on!"

"Seriously. It looks like something's lived inside there. And maybe died, by the smell of it."

Jules sighed loudly, dramatically flicking her waist-length ponytail over her shoulder before shoving him out of the way, ripping the door open and reaching in without a care.

She dug around in the engine for a while after that. Lee feigned as much interest as possible as she dismantled several parts, wondering what exactly it was she was looking for — but eventually, declared she couldn't find and slammed the hood back down with far more force than he'd ever seen her treat _any_ car with.

"Whoa. What did it do to you?"

"There's not even a hose clip," she grumbled, annoyed.

"Maybe someone else nabbed them first."

She sighed again. " _It._ There's only one."

"Tomato, tomato."

That made her smile. It was tiny, but there. "It's all _tomato, tomato_ to you." She waved her spanner. "Come on — let's keep going."

She pushed them onward, and soon enough Lee's own pockets were lined with several black, greasy objects which he promised to guard on pain of death — Julie seemed really excited about them, whatever they were, and without fail she whooped with delight every time she found something of worth to her.

By the time she finally declared that they were done, they'd already made several trips to his car and back to unload their arms and pockets. Lee felt like he'd walked every inch of the yard twice over.

"And Mr. Whitman — _Stanley—_ " (it was still weird) "—he really doesn't mind you taking all this stuff?" Lee asked a little disbelievingly over the new rattling coming from the trunk of his car as he drove away from the yard. In the passenger seat, Jules threw a cheerful wave out of the window towards Mr. Whitman, who surprised Lee by smiling and waving back.

She leaned back in her seat and grinned when the man was out of sight. "Nope. If he finds something worth saving, then I'll help work on it sometimes so he can sell it. But I get to take pretty much anything. Good, huh?"

"And here's me thinking you'd spent half your life cracking the dude's heart because you wanted to be friends. Poor guy."

Jules threw him a mildly vulgar gesture, though the broad smile on her face remained — she'd gotten a little more used to the endless teasing, and was easy to joke with. "I'll have you know I'm very good at cracking hearts. I cracked yours, didn't I?"

"Wrong. I don't have one of those, didn't you know?"

"That's just what you want everyone to think. But I know better. You just don't let anyone think any differently. Not after . . . Well, you know what I mean."

And unfortunately, he did. Jules didn't have to mention Sam by name to know what she really meant, what she'd really been about to say. So Lee said it for her.

"Sam."

"Yeah," Julie replied, quieter now. "Sorry. I know you don't really like talking about her."

"S'okay."

"No. It's not." When Lee looked over, she was pouting slightly, thoughtful but unhappy. "I get it. She hurt you. And now she's . . ." Jules shook her head. "She's just not a nice person, okay?"

"Hey — you gotta have special membership to join this hate club. No joining out of sympathy," Lee told her, trying to keep his voice light despite the familiar tightness in his chest which had reared its ugly head — as it always did, when he thought about Samantha. But he thought maybe it was some kind of improvement that he was able to joke like this, even at his own expense.

(Hell, it was an improvement to talk about Sam _out loud_ , but he thought he might live if he didn't have to say her name again.)

Julie began picking at a spot on the seat beside her legs, frowning to herself. "It's not sympathy, believe me."

"I don't just let anyone into the club. You're going to have to have a real good reason."

Julie's lips twisted, like she found him funny. "Well — okay," she said after a long moment. "So sometimes . . ."

"Sometimes . . ." Lee prompted, curious now in spite of himself.

"It sounds really stupid," she said quickly, self-consciously ducking her eyes. "Just sometimes I get the feeling — I don't know, like she's watching me or something. She . . . she really _looks_ at me. It creeps me out."

Lee frowned. "What do you mean, she _looks_ at you?"

"I told you it's stupid," she mumbled dismissively, shrugging. "It's fine, really. I'll think of a better reason."

Jules tried — and failed — to smile at him, but Lee was not so easily convinced.

"Uh-huh," he replied lamely. He tried to cheer her up all the same. "But you're right. Your reason sucks ass. I'm definitely going to need something better than that."

The joke didn't sit quite right; Lee could see that it really meant something to Julie, that it really bothered her. It was evident in the silence which lapsed, in the absence of her laugh which usually followed right on cue whenever he said something silly.

He looked over at her, slowing the car. She was staring out of the window, watching the world go by. And thinking very, very hard.

"Kid . . . does it really bother you that much?"

"It's just . . the way she treats me when she comes by the house, or if I see her 'round the Rez," she sighed, "I don't know. It's like she's waiting for me to join her stupid gang."

"I didn't know she came over that much."

"She comes to see my mom. Real late sometimes," she told him, absently fiddling with the ends of her long ponytail now. "You know Paula is with her now?"

"Yeah. I saw the three of them a few days back." And he'd run in the opposite direction — fast. They'd seen him, though.

"They were never friends before, were they? Just Jade Cameron. But now Paula is hanging around them too and it's _weird,_ Lee. So weird."

"And she watches you."

"Feels like it," Julie grumbled, sniffing — like she might cry. Or was trying not to.

Shit. "Do you want me to talk to her?"

Julie's eyes snapped to him, wide with shock as he squared his shoulders and tried to seem braver than he really felt. "You'd do that?"

"Well . . . it's not at the top of my to-do list, talking to her again. But . . . yeah. If you want. If it will help."

Lee could hardly believe the words coming out of his own mouth, and yet he was just as surprised to realise that he meant them.

Something in Julie's face softened, and she shook her head. "It's fine. I'm probably just being stupid. You don't have to. Honestly."

"It's not stupid. If she's making you _that_ uncomfortable, kid, then I'll talk to her."

"It's fine. Seriously. I wouldn't ask you to do that. Maybe you can just teach me how to avoid her like you do." Julie smiled lopsidedly and showed off a dimple in her attempt of humour.

"I kind of do that by hanging out with you," Lee admitted, as if it weren't already obvious.

Jules gasped theatrically. "No! I thought you just wanted to spend time with me."

"Maybe I do. A bit. But if you ever tell anyone I'll cut your brakes."

Julie grinned then. "I'd be scared, if I believed you knew how."

And just like that, it was back to normal. Yet it nagged at the back of Lee's mind as they parked up at the garage and Julie sorted through her findings from the scrapyard, humming along to the newest CD in the worn, beaten stereo player as she worked. It annoyed him how uncomfortable she had looked, how she had almost been near-tears at the thought of joining _a gang._ Sam's gang.

Lee had heard of it. The so-called gang. But he had ignored it, because what did it matter who Sam's friends were? It wasn't his business anymore. Whatever Sam wanted to do, who she spent her time with, had absolutely nothing to do with him.

Except that it worried Julie.

And that bothered the hell out of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After painstaking review of Chapter 6 in New Moon, I read that "Harry Clearwater was there, too, with his family — his wife, Sue, whom I knew vaguely from my childhood summers in Forks, and his two children. Leah was a senior like me, but a year older. She was beautiful in an exotic way, blah blah blah . . ."
> 
> So you're telling me that this means Lee's not a senior in high school yet? Dammit. Worse — I know squat about American systems. If there are errors with age differences and schooling years, that's all me.
> 
> PastOneonta also raised a good point in reviews about height — in Life and Death, Beau is described as 6'0 and in turn describes Sam as "almost as tall as I was" so there won't be any crazy growth spurts.


	5. v

_v._

_the loneliness never left me / i always took it with me / but i can put it down in the pleasure of your company_   
_florence + the machine, "no choir"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

There was nothing but his breathing, the steady pounding of his feet against the rocky beach, and the music blaring through his headphones.

Heaven.

The noise was deafening, turned up so loud he'd probably be shouting for the rest of the day over the ringing in his ears, but the beat was there — and it carried him easily, along the edge of the water and over the rocks, encouraging him on and on.

It was easy to run on days like this, with an endless stretch of empty sand before him and grey clouds above. The absence of the sun kept the summer tourists away, and even the pale-faced kids from Forks who usually frequented the beaches over the weekends were nowhere to be seen.

But it was June, and First Beach would be crowded soon — for as long as until September. As would the trails of Second and Third Beach, with campers and hikers all the way up to Toleak Point.

Sometimes, Lee wished the sun would never come. He could run where he pleased, then, with only the cool breeze of the Pacific for company. He wasn't that much of a fan of crowds.

A hazard of living on such a small reservation, he supposed, where he knew everyone by name and had always kept such a small group of friends. Hardly anyone ever moved to La Push, and fewer people left. Aaron had moved to Hawaii, sure, but before that . . . Lee couldn't remember.

But he liked it that way. He'd never had any great desire to leave, not like the twins. Even before George had died, they were forever making plans to live somewhere bigger, busier, better, whereas Lee had always imagined himself staying put. He would have always come back to lay his roots down again after college.

College had been Sam's dream. And he would have gone, to make her happy — they'd had their own plan. She was a year above him in school and would have deferred so that they could start their freshman year at the same time. While he worked on finishing up his senior year, she would have found a job and saved money and—

Well. It didn't matter anymore. She hadn't even finished _her_ senior year. And now Lee had no reason to go anywhere, which was just fine by him.

Running was usually enough to stop such thoughts. It was why he did it, but if he was able to think like this then he was not going fast enough. So he pushed himself harder, wishing the music could be louder, wishing he could go on and on and on until he forgot Sam altogether.

Sweat poured down his neck and into his black vest by the time he reached the half-way point of his route. Good. He focused on his breathing over his quickened pace, the mindless pop song in his ears, going faster and faster until he caught up with the two figures he'd spied in the distance a few minutes ago and blew past them. One of them jumped in their surprise.

Lee rounded on himself and ran back, a little slower now, grinning as he pulled his headphones down.

"You've been letting me win, haven't you?" Julie accused him. But she looked amused all the same, helpless to stop the corner of her mouth twitching as he approached.

"Never," he lied.

(She _was_ getting faster, though, now that she ran so often with him, but he'd never admit that to her.)

He began to make loops around her and her friend, his muscles burning as he eased into an almost painful pace to stop himself from seizing up. Julie rolled her eyes.

"Show-off," she muttered.

Lee pulled a face at her as he passed. "Just cooling down, kid," he said casually. He _may_ have been putting more effort into it than normal, but it was only to tease the girl beside her. "Hi, Quil."

Right on cue, Quil stared at her feet and reached for her ponytail, mumbling something that might have been a _hello_ in response as she combed her fingers through the strands of her hair.

Smirking, Lee came full circle again. "Where's the other one?"

"What other one?"

"The other kid who's always with you two. Esmerelda," he said, deliberately getting her name wrong as he fell into step between the girls and switched his music off.

"Emma," Julie supplied.

"That's what I said, Jenny. So where's Emily?"

Jules snorted. " _Emma,_ " she said then, rather pointedly, "doesn't hang out with us anymore."

"Uh-oh. Catfight?"

"Worse," Quil moaned from his other side. Whatever it was, it was bad enough that she had found her voice and even managed to find her courage to look at him.

When Lee met her eyes, he was horrified to find that there were tears pooling in them — he didn't _do_ tears, and if it hadn't been for Julie being close-by then he probably would have run a mile by now.

He swivelled back to Julie, eyebrows raised in slight alarm. _Help_.

"She doesn't talk to us anymore." Julie shrugged, seeming as if she didn't care. But Lee knew better. Even as they walked he could see that anger brewing, having become accustomed to her temper.

"It's like we don't exist," Quil added quietly.

"What happened?"

Quil sniffed. "We haven't seen her for _weeks._ She missed the last day of school, but — but now she's back and . . . We saw her on the cliffs today, but she ignored us."

Julie, on the other hand, had turned downright furious, balling her fists and glaring at the waves. That Lee could handle, until she said, "She's with Sam now."

"Sam," he repeated dully. Somehow, it always came back to _her_. And yet . . . Lee knew he should have suspected it would, after what Julie had already told him the week before.

"Yeah," Quil said, sniffing again — but thankfully, her cheeks were dry. "She was with all of them. On the cliffs."

" _Ugh!_ I don't _get_ it!" Julie suddenly erupted, coming to a complete stop. Lee and Quil stilled, both flinching minutely as she raved and ranted. "She didn't want anything to do with them! They bugged her the most! And now she's _with_ them, following Sam around like she's joined a cult!"

"S'pose we're next," Quil said quietly, morose.

"Don't say that," Julie snapped hotly.

"Why not? You know it was the same way with Paula — she's fifteen too," Quil explained, turning to Lee now. "She wasn't friends with Sam at all, not like Jade. Then she stopped coming to school for a few weeks, and, when she came back, suddenly Sam _owned_ her."

"If you think like that then you might as well just go and join them now," Julie told her friend, scowling darkly.

"Jules, you know I don't—"

Julie huffed, angry. "Don't say stupid things then."

"Alright, alright, stop." Lee put his hand up, feeling entirely unequipped to deal with — well, whatever it was. It wasn't the same as him squabbling with his sister, and a far cry from squabbling good-naturedly with Julie in the garage. "Don't fight with each other."

(He felt like adding _'please'_ , but he wasn't quite that desperate yet.)

"What about Bonnie?" he asked, looking at Julie and then Quil. "Or Mrs. Ateara? Surely Sam's a little old to be . . . What did they think about that?"

He hadn't finished what he'd meant to say, because he realised he would have been somewhat of a hypocrite to make slights at Sam for hanging around kids considerably younger than she was. Wasn't he doing the same thing?

But Julie scoffed, unconcerned. "They've been _really_ helpful."

Quil sighed. "My gram'ma thinks Sam can do no wrong." She gazed over the dunes, thoughtful. "Speaking of . . . I better go. We're meant to have lunch before she heads up to Neah Bay for the weekend, and she gets grouchy if anyone's late. I wasn't supposed to be gone so long."

Julie shrugged. "It's cool."

"I'll see you later?" The other girl seemed uncertain, almost worried, but Julie seemed to check herself and nodded.

"Sure, sure. Sorry about — you know. I didn't mean it."

Appeased, Quil quickly dashed forward and hugged her friend. As they parted, she threw him a shaky smile before hurrying off, her ponytail whipping her back.

It was silent as they watched her go. And when Lee turned back, Julie looked so upset still that he couldn't help the instinct to throw his arm around her shoulders. "You want me to walk you home?"

"I want to hit something," she admitted quietly, her eyes fixed on the sand as she trembled slightly underneath his arm. "I want to . . . I don't know. Sometimes I get so mad about it . . ."

"Ew. You're not about to start crying on me too are you?"

Julie's laugh was a miserable sound, and she half-heartedly pushed him away. "No," she mumbled, smiling slightly in spite of herself. "I think you're breaking Quil in, though. Good job."

Lee glanced towards the spot the other girl had disappeared and smirked. "I didn't even know she could speak."

"Ha ha," Julie deadpanned as they trudged towards the driftwood seawall. "She speaks loads when you're not around — trust me. Mostly about you. It's annoying, really."

When they found their usual spot, together they wordlessly climbed the beached log and sat shoulder-to-shoulder on one of its thicker salt-stained roots.

Julie tucked her long hair behind her ears and stared out towards the grey ocean.

"Does this qualify for that special hate club of yours now?" she asked rather tonelessly. "Stealing my friend?"

Lee thought back to last week, when Julie had dragged him to the scrapyard — and then afterwards, when he'd realised just how much the whole thing was getting to her. Sam's gang, being watched by them, feeling like they were waiting for her, somehow . . .

Maybe there was more to it than he'd imagined. Lee had always found Emma Call quiet — not as shy as Quil in front of him, perhaps, but more reserved, and the complete opposite of the likes of Paula Lahote and Jade Cameron. There had to be some reason the girl had ditched her friends.

"What do you think it is, Jules? Drugs?" he asked, but even saying the word felt wrong. He _knew_ Sam. Or he _had_ known her, and he couldn't see her ever having gotten wrapped up in something like that.

"I don't think so," Julie replied, though the hesitancy in her tone was just enough to know that she had considered it. Was still considering it, maybe. "But what do I know? What else could it be? And why aren't the old people worried? You heard Quil say as much herself — Mrs. Ateara thinks Sam shits sunshine."

"What about your mom? Everyone listens to her."

Bonnie's opinion always counted the most — everyone knew that. The council might have viewed each other as equals (hell, his own mom sat in on meetings as regularly as Bonnie) but they all turned to Bonnie when they didn't know what else to do. She was the Chief, harking back to the days when her grandmother led the tribe. Back when they were more traditional, when marriages between families and strengthening ties between old names truly meant something.

"Like I said . . . I've tried." Her voice took on a mocking tone, imitating the deep tones of her mother. "'It's nothing you need to worry about now, Jules. In a few years if you don't . . . well, I'll explain later. Leave it be.'"

"Hey, that was pretty good."

Julie scoffed and kicked her heels against the long-dead bark beneath her. "But what am I meant to get from that? Is she trying to say it's some stupid puberty, coming-of-age thing? Emma's only a few months older than I am. Does that mean come August I'll be—"

She cut off abruptly, unable to say the words.

"I just can't figure it out, Lee, and I feel like I have to, because Emma's my friend, my _best_ friend after you, and . . . Sam's looking at me funny, like I'm going to be next and nobody cares and . . . and . . ."

Julie bit her lip and clenched her hands, seemingly as ready to cry as her friend Quil had been.

Lee draped his arm over her again, and this time she leaned into his weight rather than pushing it away. He listened as she took a few shuddering breaths over the rolling waves and calmed herself.

"Best friend, huh?" he asked after a few moments.

"I swear you're just like Adam sometimes." Julie huffed a broken laugh into his chest. "Always gotta ruin the moment."

He grinned over the top of her head. "S'okay. You're mine too."

"Really?" She sounded surprised. She pulled away just enough to meet his eyes, and he pressed his lips together unhappily when he saw that her cheeks were wet.

Maybe he _should_ talk to Sam, he thought . . . Julie hadn't been so keen on the idea last time, but it was obviously getting worse. Whatever this was. He would have done it a long time ago if Sarah had been involved, even if she'd tried to shrug off the idea like Julie had.

"Yeah. But tell anyone and I'll—"

"Cut my brakes. I know." She rolled her eyes. "Do you want me to show you how?"

It was hard not to pout. But he knew it'd make her laugh, so, as sullenly as he could, he said, "Yes, please," and tried not to look too pleased with himself when she laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Some direct line lifts from New Moon.


	6. vi

_vi._

_funny it takes no time to fall back down / funny it takes the time to get back up_   
_aquilo, "you there"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

For all his determination to rip Sam a new one, Lee didn't catch sight of her until the next weekend when he was driving back from Julie's favourite auto-shop in Hoquaim.

Jules sat in the passenger seat beside him, explaining the importance of a master cylinder to Quil who was feigning as much interest as she could from the backseat. Lee could sympathise with the youngest girl; she held about as much passion for cars and their engines as he did, though she seemed to have less patience and rarely sat in the garage for a whole afternoon. She'd rather play her video games.

(Cars had always been something Julie had shared with Emma, whose hands were not as skilled but who still had the patience to learn. But none of them talked about that — not anymore. It seemed they had come to a wordless agreement to not say Emma's name again, lest Julie got too angry and Quil started crying.)

Lee had just hit the crossroads between La Push and Forks when he spied a familiar shape within the nearest treeline. His foot twitched towards the brake—

"Lee?"

"Hm?" He spared a glance in his rear-view mirror and saw Quil staring back at him, exasperation written all over her face.

"Do _you_ know what a master cylinder is?"

"It's the difference between being able to drive the car or not," he replied confidently, and he caught Julie's smug expression in the corner of his eye as he looked back towards the trees.

Sam was gone.

"See?" Julie said proudly. "I knew you were listening all along. Ask him what a tappet is next, Quil."

Quil groaned and leant her back against the window, twisting around her seatbelt and stretching her legs out along the seats as much as she could. "Can we _please_ talk about something else?"

Quil was not as tall as Julie, but both girls seemed to be in the middle of wild growth spurts and Lee could no longer keep up with the changes he was noticing every day. They didn't exactly look like fifteen-year-olds. If Mrs. Littlesea behind the counter at the store didn't know them, they probably wouldn't even get carded.

And looking like _that_ , Julie raised more eyebrows than he did.

Lee's fears from months before had never come to fruition; people around the reservation had gotten so used to seeing them all together that he was less paranoid about age differences and their misconceptions. And he supposed that not a lot of people would dare to say anything even if the thought did cross their mind, not when his mother and Bonnie openly championed the friendship so much. Even Mrs. Ateara seemed unconcerned — but Lee didn't trust the old women all that much these days, not after his eavesdropping sister had told him that she'd heard Sam was regularly sitting with them on the council these days. As it turned out, they _all_ seemed to think sunshine shone out of his ex-girlfriend's ass.

He hadn't told Julie that, and he'd sworn Sarah to secrecy. He didn't think it would help her anger any. But he _was_ going to figure this out, because it was getting ridiculous. Now that he could see, now that he knew what to look for, he couldn't _stop_ noticing the signs around the reservation.

He'd even asked his mom about it, not caring how he had so spectacularly failed to be subtle.

The four girls were like hall monitors gone bad. They'd never started a fight — not that anyone knew of. The closest they had come was running off some Makah gang that had allegedly been selling meth to kids. After that, his mom had called them _protectors._

More than anything else, it pissed Lee off that his mom had seemed to side with Sam. Holly was his _mom_. She was supposed to be on _his_ team.

So he'd officially welcomed Julie into his hate club the very next day. Childish, he knew, but it had cheered him up — eighteen and old enough to know better or not. He'd made her rip up old photos he'd still had of Sam for her initiation and told her to burn the shreds in a small bonfire, and they had laughed all afternoon. He had felt surprisingly light afterwards.

Julie was always going to be on his side. He just had to make sure that Sam kept away from her and Quil both, and if offering to drive them all the way to Hoquaim and back for Julie's elusive master cylinder was the way to do it, then he would. They were both as frightened as one another, and if Lee were honest . . . so was he.

He worried for them, but he worried for Sarah too. It felt like Sam had no limits where these kids were concerned. He didn't care if she and her gang thought they were doing something _good._ And even if they were, then Emma wouldn't have been going out of her way to avoid her friends, would she? There wouldn't have been anything to be ashamed of.

No. Sarah wouldn't have any part of it. And neither would Quil. And definitely not Julie.

Lee's fingers flexed over the steering wheel as he drove, his face set with determination which had been steadily building over these last few weeks. He'd stop anything before it happened.

"Hey." Julie reached over and touched his shoulder. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Good."

She tutted and flicked his ear. "Liar."

Lee stuck his tongue out at her. Damn kid saw too much, knew too much. And because he didn't really know how to talk — at least, not about himself — he tried for something light. "You excited for later?"

It was the NBA finals and Bonnie was as mad for basketball as his dad Saul was for football. They always got together for spaghetti on big games — no exceptions. Tonight, the Blacks were hosting.

"I can't wait. I'm so hungry," Quil whined from the back. "I've been looking forward to it all day."

Lee caught her in the rear-view mirror again. "You just ate before we got back in the car."

"I know," Quil moaned. "Two hours ago. I'm so hungry." She flailed dramatically, and Julie shook her head at her, laughing.

Lee's friendship with Quil had gotten easier over the last week or so. She was more comfortable, less of a stuttering mess around him, and he'd found her quite easy to talk to. He could see why Julie was friends with her, aside from being cousins. He'd had much the same relationship with Elliott once upon a time, and he envied it.

Quil was soon jumping out of the car at the top of her road, promising to see them later, and Lee drove the short way towards Julie's where his family looked like they were already making themselves at home.

"Incoming," Julie laughed. His little sister had clearly been waiting for them and was bounding towards the car. As Lee parked, she bounced on her feet impatiently.

"You've been gone for _all day,_ " she whined, leaning on the door as he got out. "I _hate_ basketball."

He rolled his eyes. Always so melodramatic, his sister — she got it from their mom. "You don't like any sports."

Sarah pouted. "But I hate basketball the most."

"You say that about football. And ice hockey."

"And baseball," Julie added, grinning over the top of the car.

If Sarah had been looking at Lee, she would have scowled. As it was, she was looking at Julie and smiled. Of course. "What's your favourite, Jules?"

There was a second of silence, and then—

"NASCAR," Julie and Lee replied together. Julie spoke as if she were talking about the love of her life, whilst Lee sounded more unenthusiastic, more resigned.

Sarah didn't hesitate. "Me too!"

Lee bit down on his retort, wisely choosing not to remind his sister about the time she said she'd rather watch as Mrs. Ateara drove round in circles for four hours. She'd never forgive him for embarrassing her in front of her hero.

Instead he shared a knowing smirk with Julie, who let Sarah grab her by the hand to pull her inside without complaint. She knew as well as he did that Sarah had likely spent all afternoon learning as much about any kind of auto-racing she could.

Hell, there would probably be braided friendship bracelets next. And he'd have to wear one, just so he wouldn't have to see the crushing look on Sarah's face when he refused.

These freakin' girls were going to be the death of him.

* * *

There ended up being so many at the Black's that eventually they spilled out into the yard, sitting on the yard chairs from the garage and eating spaghetti off their laps.

Even Mrs. Ateara sat with them all, which was a weirder sight that Lee could have imagined; the old woman always seemed to hold herself higher than anyone else, but here she was with a plate and looking as if she were actually enjoying herself.

She sat with her son and granddaughter Quil on either side of her, and beside them sat Lee's family: his mother, his father and then little Sarah, who had recently found another new friend in the youngest Ateara with all the time they had all been spending with one another. She seemed to idolise her almost as much as she did Julie.

Almost.

But Julie paid neither of the girls any attention tonight. She trailed Lee wherever he went, wherever he sat, clutching his arm, his hand — anywhere she could reach. She'd been shaking like a leaf since Lee's dad had arrived with Charlie in tow.

Charlie had been a constant presence throughout all their lives. The Clearwaters had seen him at least once a week, and the Blacks just as much — if not more — so it wasn't strange that he was here with them. But since his son had died . . . Charlie Swan was now a shell of who he'd once been, and though he was trying to make an effort with those around him it was clear that his heart wasn't quite in it. Maybe it never would be again.

Half-way through his plate of spaghetti, Lee nudged Julie and murmured, "Why don't you talk to him?"

She paled, digging her fingers into his skin, so he didn't ask again. But Lee knew that sitting across from them, Bonnie had seen everything. That fear. The pure, undiluted terror and guilt and stress in Julie's eyes which had been following her around since March.

It felt like it had been a long time since he'd first butt his way into her garage, when really it had only been three months or so, and he'd thought Julie had moved past the worst of it. But Julie had been hiding it well. So well, in fact, that even Lee hadn't quite realised what seeing Charlie again would do to her.

When the conversation turned loud and confusing with people talking over one another, Lee stood and began collecting the empty plates. His mom looked pleased that he had remembered his manners, but he wasn't doing it to be kind.

As she passed over her plate, Bonnie's eyes flickered to Julie before she nodded meaningfully at him. Lee shrugged back, as if to say, _I'll try,_ and headed into the house.

Not that he thought he'd do much good.

Julie didn't relax until the door closed behind them. Her hand dropped from his elbow, and she jumped up to sit on the counter by the sink as he began washing-up. It wasn't until after a long moment of staring at the dirty plates that she wordlessly reached for a dish towel by the kettle and began drying each one he handed over.

"Did you really think talking to him will do any good?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know." His hand scrubbed slowly underneath the soapy water, quietly surprised that she had broken their comfortable silence first. "If I knew it would stop you from blaming yourself over Beau," he continued, ignoring the way she flinched beside him at the name, "then . . . yes. I'd make you go and sit with Charlie right now."

"I don't want to talk to him."

"Why?"

Jules stacked a second plate beside her and opened her hand out for the next, keeping her eyes away from his. "Because it won't change anything."

"You don't know that. Maybe that girlfriend of his blames herself. Maybe Charlie blames himself. Maybe," Lee said, trying to keep his voice even, "you're all wrong, and it was just as much of an accident as your dad's crash was. Charlie bought the truck off your mom weeks and weeks before anything happened."

They'd had this conversation before, of course, though Julie never listened to reason. And she didn't now.

She sighed, as she so often did after hearing his argument. " _You_ don't know that either."

"Actually, I do. I just wish you would, too," he told her. "Talking to Charlie might help that."

"Like talking to Elliott might help you?"

Lee had long-learned not to take anything Julie said to heart, not with that temper of hers which seemed to be spiralling out of control. At times she seemed as powerless to stop harsh words coming out of her mouth as she did the shaking of her hands. It just . . . happened, appearing at odd, random intervals, often in response to nothing except a simple raise of his eyebrows.

He shrugged. "We're not talking about me."

"Why?" She kicked the cupboards underneath the counter. "Why do we always have to talk about _my_ problems and not _your_ problems?"

"We talk about your problems because I don't want to talk about my problems," Lee replied, as if it should have been obvious that he'd rather tear a ligament than talk about himself.

His answer had Julie sputtering indignantly, trying to find the right words to protest, but he continued. "My shit is old news, anyway. Everyone knows all about it."

"Do they? You never talk about it."

"Do I have to?" he countered. "They see her wrapped around him, don't they? She spent so long wrapped around me that it's kinda obvious what happened."

Julie scowled. "Maybe you should."

"Pot, kettle and black, kiddo. It's not like _you_ talk to anyone. Not about this."

"I talk to you all the time," she argued.

"And Quil? Your mom?"

She couldn't argue with that, and the fire inside of her disappeared as quickly as it had begun raging. "They wouldn't understand if I did," she muttered, her grip loosening on the towel.

Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn't. He thought about it as he drained the dirty water from the sink, and put the plates Julie had dried and stacked back in one of the lowest cupboards Bonnie would able to reach. In all honesty, he didn't wholly understand either. It was hard to fight with the kind of irrationality Julie kept close, but perhaps she knew that. Deep down.

"Look — I'll make you a deal, 'kay? Talk to Charlie," he said when he stood back up. Julie suddenly appeared very interested in her fingernails. "Just try, at least. Not tonight, just . . . soon."

"And what are you going to do?" she asked, her words full of doubt as she idly picked at the side of her thumb.

"I won't bug you about it again."

"Seems a bit unfair," she grumbled. But she took his hand when he offered it out to her and jumped down from the kitchen counter, and he smiled down at her.

"Hasn't anyone told you? Life's unfair."

"Life sucks, then you die. That's what Adam says."

And to think Adam was the know-it-all with the scholarship, giving advice like that to his baby sister. Lee almost rolled his eyes.

"If I do — talk to Charlie, I mean," she said then, chewing on her lip as she looked at the door which led out into the yard with uncertainty, "Will you come with me?"

"Sure," he said, because he was dead certain by now that he'd give Jules as much as he'd ever give Sarah. He just didn't know how to put those kind of promises into words.

"Now?" she asked. But she didn't wait for an answer. She nodded shakily, determinedly, almost as if to herself, before she straightened her back a little comically and begun leading the way. Like she was walking to her own execution.

Lee made sure he covered his laugh with a cough before following.


	7. vii

_vii._

_you listen to the tone and the violent rhythm / and though the words sound steady something empties within them_   
_linkin park, "waiting for the end"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

A few days later, opportunity finally knocked when he was walking towards the store on an errand for his mom and caught Emma hanging around outside.

At least, he _thought_ it was Emma. She was several inches taller, almost pushing six feet by his reckoning, and her hair looked like it had been literally hacked off to her ears. It was all dark and uneven, so short it exposed her bare shoulders. Lee had never seen the girl with so much skin on show before; Emma was as much of a tomboy as Julie, always wearing denim and t-shirts and sweats, but there she stood in frayed cut-offs and a tank top and with the biggest scowl on her face he'd ever seen.

She'd always been so happy. _Before_ , anyway. Before she'd gotten herself mixed up in whatever it was Sam had going on with these girls.

And Lee was going to find out just what that was.

He was glad that Julie was not with him, because she would have stopped what was about to happen. But she wasn't, and without her refereeing he was not going to hold back. With a bit of luck Sam would appear (whether that was bad or good luck he wasn't sure, though he seemed to be in fine stock of bad luck these days where she was concerned), and then it would be a real party. He'd been holding this in for far, far too long.

He jogged the rest of the distance. "Emma!"

The girl swivelled round, eyes bulging when she caught sight of him approaching. She'd only just managed to school her face into something neutral by the time he'd caught up with her, though her hostility rolled off her in waves as she put a wide berth between them.

"What?" she asked coolly.

"You know exactly what," he bit back, and God help him if he sounded anything like his father talking to Sarah. All he needed to do now was say ' _young lady_ ' and point his finger at her. "What happened to you?"

"What the fuck do you care for?"

He raised an eyebrow. She'd never been outright rude to him before (shit, he'd never even heard her curse), but while it was obvious Emma was trying to seem as if she cared very little, her feigned indifference was fairly shaky and the hard lines in her face were out of place. It was as if they'd been etched in by someone else, forced there, not really belonging. She clearly wasn't used to them yet, just as she looked out of place in the rest of her body.

It _had_ to be drugs — steroids, maybe. Fifteen, sixteen-year-old girls didn't look like this. Not on the reservation. Not anywhere he'd seen. And Emma looked scarily like Julie was starting to — the only difference was their hair, and it made Lee so furious that he had to force the thought from his mind. He was angry enough.

"I care," he said, trying to remember how to breathe, "because you've ditched your friends and you're ignoring them for no good reason. You're scaring them!"

Emma flinched, wild emotions danced suddenly in her eyes. She struggled to keep them under control and blinked furiously against their heavy weight. It was a few, tempestuous moments before she said, "They're better off without me."

"I don't believe that. _They_ don't believe that. Not even after you tossed them aside to start following Sam about like one of her disciples—"

"It's not like that," she snapped, her hard lines snapping back into place. "You don't understand a thing about what's going on."

"Nobody does! It doesn't make sense! You hated Sam — Jules and Quil said as much, that you were frightened. And now what? All of a sudden she's your best friend?"

"I was wrong," Emma said, her stoic face faltering again. "I just didn't get it before. I don't hate her."

"You didn't get it," Lee repeated disbelievingly. "And, what, now you do?"

She nodded sharply.

"Well, thank fuck for that. You really don't care about anyone else, do you?" he continued to argue. "Julie and Quil are worried sick about you. But I guess I'll just tell them to expect their invitation, shall I," — the words made him sick to say — "and tell them there's nothing to worry about? Is that what you want for your friends?"

"It'll happen," Emma said with frightening confidence. But she looked sick about it too, though it didn't make him feel any better. "There's not enough of us to—" She broke off, almost choking, and had to swallow harshly around whatever was stuck in her throat.

" _Not enough of you?"_

"No." She squared her shoulders. "But that's none of your business."

"Like hell it isn't!" he yelled. He'd go down swinging if he had to — he _had_ to understand this. It had been nagging and nagging at him, and after all the upset it had caused Julie he wasn't about to let it lie. They all deserved answers. "I want to know what's going on!"

Emma's hazel eyes fluttered shut for a moment as she took a deep breath. When they reopened, there were tears in them as she fought against her shaking hands tucked underneath her armpits. "I can't tell you, okay? I just _can't_. So, please, don't bother."

"Why?" He couldn't help but deflate somewhat at her softer tone, her sudden show of weakness; she was only _fifteen,_ and the stark reminder was unsettling. "Emma, whatever it is — we can sort it, yeah?"

"You can't help me."

"Let us try."

She barked a broken laugh. "What can _you_ do? Only Sam—" Emma's voice cut off again and she turned away with a growl, clearing the way for Lee to see one of the others storming out of the store and straight towards them.

Not Sam — though he wasn't sure whether he was relieved or disappointed by that — but Paula.

Good. He straightened to his full height at the sight of her. The more the merrier, after all. Now all he needed was the other one. Jade.

This girl was taller than Emma — not by much, but when she came toe-to-toe with him, teeth bared, she still had to look up at him. Her hair was even wilder, her clothes torn in some places. Lee thought that while Julie might have been starting to look like Emma, Paula looked a hell lot more like Sam had when he'd seen her recently.

" _You_ ," she snarled.

Emma jumped forwards. "Paula—"

Paula batted Emma to the side as she tried to come between them. "Stay out of this, Em."

Lee's derisive laugh bubbled in his chest and erupted from him as a strangled sort of sound. "Who do you think you are? You can't tell her what to do."

Paula growled and shoved at his chest. "Fuck I can." Her lip curled menacingly. "She's not got anything to say to you. You think we haven't seen you? Hanging out with girls. Young girls," she sneered. "People will start getting the wrong idea if you're not careful."

Lee held the girl's close stare for a moment, fighting against the urge to curl his fingers. Breathe in, breathe out. It was wrong to hit girls. It was wrong to hit girls. It was wrong to hit girls.

Breathe in, breathe out.

He turned to Emma. Somehow finding the strength to put some distance between them and disregard Paula entirely, whose snarl at the dismissal almost drowned out his voice as he said, "Let's go."

Emma blinked, stunned. "W—what?"

"You heard me. Let's go. Now."

Kidnap was out of the question. He was eighteen now, legally an adult, although the La Push cops wouldn't know what to do with themselves — they'd not had a shred of trouble on the reservation for years. Maybe they'd rope in the Forks officers to help. Maybe Charlie would be the one after him, which Lee wasn't sure would do much for the families' friendships . . .

It was a funny thought, though. Maybe he _could_ just . . .

No. Definitely out of the question, even if it would be for the girl's own good. And he was not going to be _that_ guy.

Pain flashed across Emma's face. "I — I can't do that."

"Who says?"

Her eyes flickered to Paula, reading something there which Lee couldn't see before she pulled them back to him and stepped even further away. "I just can't. I'm sorry. Tell Jules and Quil . . ."

"Tell them yourself!"

"I'm sorry," she said again.

Lee reached out for her but stumbled back in the same second, sudden agony blooming across the side of his face and over his nose.

Through blurred eyes, he saw Paula's fist snap back as Emma lunged for her. "No, Paula!"

"He went for you," she snarled, trembling in her rage, though she didn't seem to resist as Emma dragged her back. Like she _wanted_ to be stopped before she did something worse.

"No, you were just looking for an excuse," she reprimanded, as if she were used to doing so. "Sam's going to _kill_ you for that."

"I don't care! He deserves it!"

Still somewhat stunned, even as they fought between themselves, Lee touched his nose — _ouch —_ and his hand was met with blood. What the hell did Sam care if the bitchiest one of her little gang had decked him? She'd probably be pleased, after all she had done to him. It would just be the icing on the cake, something which she had never had the chance to do.

Emma yanked Paula further away and threw him a pleading look. "Lee — just go, please."

"Yes, Lee, _go_. Back to your little girlfriends."

It was wrong to hit girls. It was wrong to hit girls.

. . . He may have made an exception, though, had he been any less decent. Instead he took another deep breath, wincing against the pain and stream of blood. Paula looked a little smug as he prodded at his nose again.

"I'm not going anywhere," he told them.

"Fine!" Emma shouted, sounding thoroughly exasperated now. "Paula. Move."

"I'm fine," she growled, staring at Lee.

" _Before_ you lose it," Emma urged.

That drew Paula up a little short — but they'd been talking in riddles, in half-sentences, and he understood the significance of the words as much as he had anything else. It left him slightly disbelieving as Paula finally tore out of her restraints and actually turned to leave, though she ensured to share one last vicious look with him before she spat in his direction and took off in a run.

"Emma, wait—" he started, but she left, too, and did not so much as look back at him.


	8. viii

_viii._

_if there's something left to lose then don't let me wear out my shoes that i still walk in_   
_jimmy eat world, "dizzy"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

"Well," said Julie as she peered closely at him, "I don't _think_ it's broken . . . It looks the same as it did before, if that helps."

Her lips pressed down on a smile as Lee went a little cross-eyed, judging the shape of his nose for himself. When he sniffed experimentally, a rush of blood let loose and began pouring down his shirt again.

She shook her head, her sigh a little despairing as she reached for another greasy rag. It was as stained as the first one she'd used when he'd stumbled into her garage ten minutes ago, and she pressed it gingerly to his face. "Lean back."

His head spinning, Lee closed his eyes and did as he was told. He grit his teeth and gripped the plastic arms of the rusty camping chair he had claimed for his own all those months ago as Jules dabbed gently.

She sighed again, her breath washing over him. "You're going to have a black eye for sure."

"That's probably all the dirty rags you're using. It'll wash off."

"Sure," she scoffed over the rain battering against the aluminium roof above them. "Here, take this. I'll get something cleaner."

Julie passed over the blood-and-oil-stained cloth, and he listened to her rummaging around for a minute as his head hung over the back of the chair. He hoped that he wouldn't be this dizzy as he staggered home — _without_ all the groceries his mom had wanted, he remembered with a sinking feeling. Maybe the state he was in would give him a hall pass.

After she freaked out, that was.

Surprisingly, Julie hadn't yelled at him yet. He'd kind of expected her to flip the second she saw his face, but instead she'd just ushered him into the chair and stared wide-eyed when he'd told her Paula had punched him.

"So," she said when she came back and nudged his hand away, "how hard did you hit her back?"

"I didn't," he grumbled. "I wanted to, though."

"Really? How did you hurt your hand then?" she asked, and he felt her feather-light touch as her fingers ghosted over his bloody knuckles. There were a few deep cuts, but otherwise his fist was peppered with shallow grazes. It wasn't as bad as it looked.

"Tree."

"What did it do to you?"

"It was in my way," he told her. He didn't want to admit that he wasn't as gallant as he'd made out and had imagined Paula's face whilst he'd hammered his fist into the bark. Over and over.

"Mm-hm. Right. Well, I think we should go inside and wash it."

"With your mom there? Looking like this? No way. Clean me up as best you can and then I'll go home and have a shower. I'll be fine."

Julie didn't sound so convinced. "It might get infested with maggots and shit."

Lee tried not to laugh in case more blood should start pouring out of his nose. "Maggots."

"Yeah, me and the twins watched this really gross television programme once and it—"

"Jules," he said, his stomach churning, "I really don't want to know."

He cracked an eye open and saw her biting back yet another grin as she folded over the rag and wiped it underneath his nose. "Sorry. But it _was_ really gross. I don't want you to get an infection or something."

It hurt to laugh. "Only because you want to drive up to Port Angeles next weekend."

"Well, yeah," she admitted shamelessly — she had a good lead on a master cylinder which would fit her car, "but also because you'll hurl your guts up when you start seeing pus, and I'm not cleaning _that_ up."

"Maybe I'll let you drive instead."

Jules snorted disbelievingly, and Lee's face ached as it stretched with a smile.

She leaned nearer then, her brows furrowing with concentration as she considered his face again and rubbed at a spot of dried blood with her thumb. And by the time she pulled back, hand dropping, she had turned a little fierce.

"Don't," he said, seeing the resolve forming on her face. "She's not worth it."

"She _hit_ you."

"My fault."

Julie tossed the rag away, her anger rising. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Lee cautiously sat upright, stretching his legs out over the floor. It was almost as if he were settling in for a lecture — one he had been expecting, one he had felt brewing during the minutes Jules had spent fussing. "I wasn't."

"I've a mind to go and find that bitch myself," she murmured, her dark words distant and face tight as she stared through the open, wooden door of her garage and across the muddy yard.

Lee startled then, shooting forwards in his chair — but his dizziness won out, and he lost the strength to stand on his feet.

"No! No. I don't want you anywhere near them. They're . . . It's all wrong, Jules. I don't like it." Especially not now he had seen it for himself. Not after Emma seemed so convinced, so certain that Julie would soon become one of them and turn her back on everyone else, just like they had. "Emma's in a bad way."

Julie's head turned to meet him, eyes blazing at the mention of her friend. "Did she say anything?"

"That she was sorry. A lot. It was kinda weird. And then when Paula tried to defend her honour or whatever she was doing, she was . . . well, not mad exactly, but she was annoyed. At Paula mostly, I think."

"Because she hit you."

"After she accused me of being a paedophile."

" _What?!_ " Julie's outrage drowned out the sound of the rain. "Did she actually say that?!"

"Not in so many words," he muttered bitterly, his stare dropping to the concrete, "but it was pretty obvious what she meant."

" _Bitch_ ," Julie seethed, her whole body starting to quiver.

Yes, Lee agreed. What a bitch. But Paula's words painfully pressed upon him still, every one of them loud in his ears.

 _Girls,_ she'd said. _Young girls._

As if she'd known his darkest fears and had played on them, when he had spent so long battling with himself about it. The stereotypes, the judgement. It was Paula fucking Lahote, of all people, who was now making him question himself more than he ever had before. When the tribal elders had not made so much as one remark about it!

Jules closed her eyes in what Lee could only think was concentration as she tried to calm herself, and she exhaled loudly. Once. Twice.

"S'okay," he said, knowing not much he could do or say would help; he felt the same. Not even being friends — true friends — with Julie seemed to have disproved as much as he'd hoped it had. At least, not with Paula Lahote. And yet, for all she'd said, for all he'd worried . . . it didn't _feel_ wrong.

What should it have mattered that he was eighteen and Julie was fifteen? It hadn't come between them before, if he ignored that week or so he'd stayed away from her out of his own fear. But the rest of the world felt differently.

"Jules, really. I knew that's what people would think. She's just the first person who's said it out loud. It's okay."

Her eyes snapped open and narrowed at him slightly. " _You_ knew? What — Lee, you don't actually care about that stuff, do you?"

"I did," he admitted, shrugging lamely. "For a bit, I guess. Didn't you?"

"No," she replied immediately, the single word so clear and honest that he was unable to doubt her. "I didn't think you did, either."

"I'm eighteen." He leaned forward in the camping chair, arms on his knees. He needed to take some aspirin. Badly. "Maybe it didn't when I first started coming round before my birthday, but . . . shit like that matters to some people, Julie. Even if we are just friends."

"It doesn't to me."

"And it doesn't to me, either."

"But it bothers you what they think," she countered. And, damn him, she looked hurt, her rage melting rapidly against it as it took over. "Why? Are you going to feel better when I turn sixteen? Will everything suddenly be different then?"

"Jules, I don't—"

"We're not doing anything _wrong_ , Lee," Julie said, arms flailing wildly as she tried to emphasise her point, unable to keep herself still. " _You're_ not doing anything wrong. What difference does it make if friends are the same age or three or five years apart? Because I'm a girl and you're a boy?"

Well — yes. That was the crux of it all. And he was not just a boy, but an _older_ boy who people were starting to openly question now. And Julie was a minor.

"That is such _shit_ , and you know it. Even if there _was_ something going on, which there _isn't_ —" she spat, an unreadable emotion crossing her face as she went on "—I'm closer to sixteen than I am fifteen, if _consent_ is the issue."

Lee pushed himself out of the chair. "It's not an issue—"

"It obviously is!" She whirled on him so quickly that he pulled back. Her eyes were as ruthless and daring as the ocean crashing over First Beach in a storm. "Who cares how old you are or how old I am, really! If you could only be with who somebody else decides _socially acceptable_ ," she cried, voice rising, "then you'd be stuck with the same people for the rest of your life around here because there's hardly anyone on this reservation to choose from!"

He thought about Sam and Elliott who had turned their backs on him, about Adam and Aaron who had pretty much done the same thing — they were the only people exactly his age out of three-hundred-or-so living in La Push. So Lee tried not to take offence at Julie's words, as he so often found himself doing these days — because she was right, in a way — but he was unable to fight the slight sting they left.

"I didn't _choose_ you because there was nobody else," he told her, his own frustrations surfacing at her insinuation — whether she had meant it that way or not, "I _like_ you. I don't care how old you are."

"So why are you so worried about everyone else?!"

"Because—" Lee swallowed harshly around the truth threatening to break free, but it was useless to try and stop it. "If someone decides to kick up enough of a fuss that it becomes a problem then . . . I can't lose one more person."

Julie stared at him, trembling, her fists balled, but said nothing. Almost willing him to go on. So he did.

"The twins. Elliott. Sam. That was my life, and now _this_ is my life. They were my best friends, and now you're my best friend, and there's nobody else, okay? I don't care if that makes me a bit weird or if people think I'm a bit wet, but I _do_ care if what they think means that . . . _Fuck._ "

He scrubbed angrily at his face and instantly regretted it when pain exploded around his nose and over his eye. He was definitely going to be sporting a shiner.

"Means what, Lee?" Jules asked, encouraging him further on. Because this was the most he had ever admitted to her, more than he had ever admitted to anyone since Sam left him — though he had never been comfortable with having to talk about himself then, either. And Julie knew that.

Lee sighed heavily, wanting to fall back into the camping chair and close his eyes. He felt drained. But he kept himself upright, his heart pounding and chest heaving.

Julie waited as he fought for another steadying breath before continuing. "That time your mom called and said you'd locked yourself in . . . I wasn't in the greatest place either. I wasn't doing so good. I hadn't been for a really long time, not since — well, you know. But I'll go right back to that if I have to start staying away because people think I'm some sleazeball for hanging out with you. So yes, I worry about what they think."

Silence. Then, "You helped me too, you know," she told him quietly, because she understood. She understood what he meant, the true meaning behind his words within all the other truths. She always understood.

And Lee nodded, because he knew what they had done for each other — consciously or not.

Julie sat on the hood of the Rabbit, sighing and running a hand through her wayward, waist-length hair as the fight finally left her. "Are we gonna be alright, Lee?"

He moved to perch next to her, keeping his weight forward. It wasn't worth his life if he dented anything. "We're gonna be fine, kid. Me and you. I can't say the same for Paula the next time I see her, but . . ."

It was a lie, of course, though he knew the thought would entertain Julie as much as he was entertaining it himself.

It did, and she smirked. "Get in line. Seriously. I could quite literally kill her right now. I really think I might."

"No. I don't want you within a mile of that psycho." ( _There's not enough of us. Not enough,_ Emma's echo taunted him.) "What about voodoo?"

"Whatever. As long as it hurts."

"I'll get the pins," he said.

"And the matches."

"Don't forget the lighter fluid."

"She's going to wish she never laid a hand on you," Julie said, and she made it sound like a promise.


	9. ix

_ix._

_i had the strangest feeling your world's not all it seems / so tired of misconceiving what else this could've been_   
_mumford & sons, "believe"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

Lee looked awful the next morning. His eye was almost completely swollen shut, the left side of his cheek mottled with blue and purple, but Julie had been right — his nose wasn't broken. A small mercy, though it _was_ as sore as the rest of his face and blood spurted if he so much as breathed through it the wrong way.

Fucking Paula.

He gave his sister a fright at breakfast, and almost resigned himself to spending the rest of the week away from the house just so that his mother would stop looking at him suspiciously; Holly didn't believe the story he'd concocted last night about falling flat on his face in the Black's garage (right upon a toolbox, at that) but, thankfully, she hadn't pressed him too much about it. He hated lying.

His dad meanwhile had clapped him on the back and muttered that he couldn't wait to see the other guy. That was, of course, said out of his wife's earshot and only after his medical training had kicked in. Saul had been working at the Quileute Health Centre since he'd finished school and had given Lee the once over himself before declaring there was nothing to worry about.

"So what really happened?" Sarah whispered over her toast.

"I fell."

She glanced behind her, and Lee followed her pointed gaze to their mom who was talking quietly on the phone by the kitchen window. "C'mon," she breathed as their eyes met again, "I won't tell anyone."

Lee was usually a fool for little Sarah. He loved her like nothing else, his baby sister, and she knew it — knew that she could very, very easily have him on his knees if she so wished it. And that made it extremely difficult to tell her the truth, because he'd undoubtedly be ruined when she laughed at him for being decked by a _girl_. It would be far worse than Julie laughing at him.

(Not that she had, but his pride had been threatened at the possibility of it and that had been bad enough.)

"I fell," he said again, pleading innocence as he reached for his breakfast juice — an awful red mixture, courtesy of his father who was on yet another health kick due to suffering an almost lifetime fear of his wife's irregular heartbeat she had to take twice-daily medication for.

Sarah rolled her eyes to high heaven. "Yeah," she huffed, "but on whose fist?"

His mom saved him from answering, sighing deeply as she came to the breakfast bar and rubbing her forehead with the back of her hand. She looked more stressed than ever, and Lee felt guilty for not having seen it sooner. No wonder his dad was pushing the smoothies so much this past week, encouraging the benefits of them every morning without fail before he kissed her on the cheek and headed out to work.

Sarah frowned, concerned and distracted by what she also saw. "What's wrong, Mom?"

Holly blew another breath. "That was Bonnie," she told them, looking at Lee. "It looks like Julie has mono."

His face twisted enough that it hurt underneath the bruises. _Mono?_ That was what usually spread around school — they'd had three kids off school with it after Christmas. Of course, Nathaniel had been kissing Hannah and Susie both but—

Shit.

He paled underneath his mother's gaze. "It wasn't me," he said, indignant.

Beside him, Sarah erupted into giggles and was silenced only by the danger of Holly's swift hand to the back of her head.

But their mom's hand stopped short, knowing that the threat of it alone was to stop her children from making pests of themselves. Their parents had never hit them, not once.

They'd dropped them on their heads a few times though, that was for sure.

Sarah mumbled an apology and ducked her eyes, but peeked at Lee from underneath her lashes and was holding back her smile. He scowled at her, hoping he looked menacing enough with Paula's dark marks over his face, but Sarah simply bit down on her lip with shaking shoulders as she tried to hold herself together.

Holly ignored her and put her palm on his forehead, brushing his short hair back and resting it there for a few moments. "Hmm. Well, you seem alright to me — injuries aside," she added disapprovingly enough that he looked away, too. "How do you feel?"

"Peachy," he replied, pulling away.

She didn't sound too concerned, but still she asked, "Sore throat? Headache?"

He knew better than to roll his eyes. "No. Really, Mom, I'm fine."

He _did_ have a headache, but it was from the beating he'd received — not mono. Lee had since decided that Paula clearly worked out as much as he did and that she was freakishly strong. Even after getting into fights at school, he'd never sported bruises as badly as the ones he had now. It was pure luck that there were no broken bones.

It was fact, as far as he was concerned. Paula Lahote was both a psycho and a freak of nature. And that was that. He hoped that _she_ got mono, if it was making another round on the Rez. She certainly had the reputation for it. People wouldn't be surprised if a girl like that caught the kissing disease.

Julie, though? Something didn't add up.

"Okay." His mom patted his shoulder, checked his sister over, and went back to the phone. If she was calling Bonnie back or even Mrs. Ateara, she'd probably be talking with them for the rest of the morning. Council stuff, likely. It usually always was.

Which meant that he wouldn't be able to call Julie. And he'd given his cell to Sarah, after Sam had left. It wasn't like he'd needed it anymore.

Lee kicked his sister lightly underneath the table. "Hey, can I use your cell?"

"Sure," she said automatically, without thinking — but then she seemed to remember herself, and she grinned devilishly over her breakfast. "Only if you tell me who painted your face."

"Paula Lahote."

Sarah blinked, head jerking back in her surprise. "Really?"

"If I say yes, will you let me use the damn cell?"

His sister narrowed her eyes at him speculatively, pursing her lips as she considered his face, his sincerity. "I don't believe you," she announced after a long moment. "Was it Elliott? Or one of the Makah boys?"

Lee tucked his sore, grazed hand into his lap and chose not to answer. Instead, he said, "Just one phone call. You only use it to talk to Colleen and Bradyn, anyway."

Sarah was conspiring now, though, and hardly listening. Or doing a very good job not to. The corner of her mouth curved. "Julie took a swing at you with a hammer, didn't she?"

"No."

"Spanner?"

" _No_ , Sarah."

Her eyes widened. "Worse?"

Lee tried very hard not to push his kid sister off her chair before he stalked back up to his bedroom.

* * *

It was only his reluctance to argue with his mom about it that she managed to keep him at bay for four days — four boring, _miserable_ days — before, on the fifth morning, he said, "I looked it up on the computer, you know." His horror had been like nothing else when the website had told him mono could last for more than a month, but — "Sometimes it takes weeks for mono to show up before you get sick. Months, even."

His mom seemed to bury herself in the fridge. "Hm? What's that?"

He sighed and pushed himself away from the table. She had been acting stranger than ever, his mom, since Bonnie had told her that Julie was sick. On the second day, she'd disappeared for a whole afternoon with a flimsy excuse about visiting their dad at work. Lee hadn't yet pulled her up on his dad coming home before her that day, asking where she was when he saw her car missing from the drive.

He took a deep breath, wishing he had his mother's patience, that he knew how to be as mellow and happy as she could be for six days out of seven and sometimes for longer than that (though it was probably all those damn pills she took); he felt like he had all of his father's fire and nothing else.

"I said that you can have mono for ages and not know. And it's worse during the first week." (If he had his way, he'd see Julie again in two days. They just couldn't share a soda, or anything.) "But it's also like strep, right? Has Bonnie taken her to the doctor?"

"I'm so sick of these shakes," his mom muttered, shaking her head at the contents of the fridge. "Your father hasn't been fishing for weeks just so I don't make fish fry and eat the whole lot. I can't even remember the last time I had a steak."

Lee clenched his teeth. Another breath. "Maybe she just needs antibiotics," he continued. "She wasn't sick when I saw her last."

"I can't _wait_ until he gets bored with this and takes us to the diner and I can—"

"I got a girl pregnant."

Holly jumped and spun towards him. " _What?_ "

"So you _are_ listening to me," he said. And his mom, realising what he'd been trying to do — grab her attention, rather than scare her to kingdom come — dropped her shoulders and schooled her face into something more apologetic.

"I am listening, Lee."

"Why are you being so weird?"

"I'm not," she replied all too casually. But his parents had always been shit at lying — that's why he and Sarah were hardly any good at it, either, and why nobody believed him about falling on a toolbox.

The Clearwaters sucked at lying.

Then Holly scowled admonishingly. "You shouldn't scare me like that. You know what I'll do to you if you ever get a girl pregnant out of wedlock, Leland Clearwater."

"Please," he scoffed. "As if you're not already wondering whether it was me who gave Julie mono."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it?" he accused, temper rising. "You've been acting off with me since she got sick. I _know_ you think it was me, so just say it, Mom. It's what everyone else probably thinks, right? I mean, it's not like there've been any other guys hanging out with her — hardly anyone, in fact. Just me and Quil and Sarah, sometimes. So you _must_ think it was me."

Holly opened her mouth to respond before very deliberately pressing her lips together again.

"Go on," Lee dared, "ask me."

His mom took a deep breath and shook her head, closing her eyes for a brief second. "No. I know you better than that," she said. "I know you didn't give Julie mono, Lee. It's just something she's picked up, that's all."

"So why are you being so weird!" he demanded again, more fiercely this time. If she really believed him, then she would not be changing the subject whenever he spoke of Julie, would not be averting her eyes whenever he raised his questions. She would not be spending her afternoons elsewhere. She would not be keeping her secrets — because that's exactly what it felt like.

The whole damn reservation was full of secrets, it seemed. And it had all started with Sam. That much Lee knew.

Holly didn't flinch. She was the calm waters to her husband's storm — the same which her son had inherited. "I have more faith in you than you realise. I know you don't believe it," she said, "and you believe it even less of other people where your friendship with Julie is concerned, but you can believe _me._

"So you listen to me," she continued, "when I tell you that I don't think those things of you because I know you don't even think them yourself. Do you think I would have pushed you out of the door to go and see her most days if I did?"

Her voice was steady and clear. Quiet. But she might as well have been screaming at him, for all the weight her words held. But that was his mom's power. It was why she sat on Bonnie Black's right hand side at the Council meetings, why she spoke for the other woman in her absence.

"And even if you did," she added, "then I know you're too much like your father — too damn honourable to do anything about it. Do you know that a single year between us stopped him from asking me . . ."

She trailed off, lost in her memory, and shook her head with a private smile.

He huffed, angry, no extra strength to even spare a gag at the dreamy look on his mother's face. His parents were stupidly, hopelessly in love. Still, after all these years.

The sound snapped Holly out of her reverie. She smiled still, though it was different now. A gentler, softer smile Lee recognised as the one she saved for only him and his sister.

He simply scowled back at her, unable to do anything else as his anger consumed him. Because for all his mom's ability to command the room, he did not — _could not_ hear anything that was anything less than the answer he wanted. And she had not answered him anything, not really.

"I know you're worried about her," she said, eyes turning a little tight, "but she's fine. Tired and . . . _grouchy_ , I suppose, but fine. She'll be up on her feet soon enough."

"You've seen her?"

A beat. As if his mom was registering what she'd just said, what she'd given away. "No. Bonnie called."

"Right."

(The Clearwaters sucked at lying.)

It didn't escape his notice that his mom looked a little nervous, either from knowing she'd been rumbled or because of the assessment she saw in his eyes, the plan she saw forming there. And before he could announce it, she said, abruptly light, "She'll call you, Lee. Leave her be for now. It's nothing you need to worry about."

Funny — that was the same thing Julie had said Bonnie told her.

But it was what Julie had said to him _after_ that which he replayed in his mind most as he trudged into his bedroom and laid upon his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

_I just can't figure it out, Lee, and I feel like I have to._

_And Sam's looking at me funny, like I'm going to be next._

_And nobody cares._

He lay there for hours, missing lunch and dinner as he chewed over each sentence, each word, until he did something he hadn't done since the early years of dating Sam: he waited until his family went to bed and he climbed out his window, down the tree, more nimble, more angry than he remembered ever being, and he ran.


	10. x

_x._

_round my hometown / oh, the people I've met are the wonders of my world_   
_adele, "hometown glory"_

* * *

**(Julie)**

With the towering Olympic Mountains at her back and the river of stars above, Julie Black had never been more in love with her lands.

She had always known that they were beautiful, of course; her home was full of century-old trees, snow-capped peaks, deep blue-green lakes and rivers which flowed into the ocean and crashed against the cliffs — but she honestly felt that she'd spent the past half-week seeing it all for the very first time, as if she'd lived for fifteen years with her eyes closed.

The world was so much sharper as a wolf. She could hear everything, see everything, smell everything, _feel_ everything.

And it was _glorious_ _._

She loved running through the forests and mountains, tracing new maps in her mind and marking her favourite spots. She loved listening to the rain with her new ears whilst the wind whistled and whipped, able to taste the oncoming storm upon it. Nothing — except for perhaps spending an afternoon underneath the hood of her car — could compare.

She'd taken to it like a duck to water. None of her sisters had made the transition so easily, but Bonnie had explained that was because Ephrath's blood was her blood. It was pure instinct which would drive her from now on, pure instinct which would immediately have the others falling in line behind her in their blind loyalty.

Jules had been snapping at them for days about it. Twice now Samantha had fallen on her right flank, taking up the position of Second without realising what she was doing, and Julie had immediately stepped backwards each time.

She was not the Alpha — _Sam_ was — but nobody seemed to understand that she did not want the responsibility. Even being able to see into her mind and read the undercurrent of emotions there, her sisters had simply determined that she just wasn't ready for it yet. They only saw birthright and tradition, not that she was fifteen-nearly-sixteen-years-old and completely out of her depth.

Yes, she might have been a better wolf than she was a human, might have been better than the rest of them put together, but that did not mean that she _wanted_ to be.

She would trade it all in a heartbeat, if she could. No matter how much she loved the speed, the strength — she would give up her newfound abilities and go back to her garage just to be able to spend an afternoon with Lee and—

Wishful thinking was pointless. She was stuck like this, suckered into a life-long contract with no get-out clause. And Lee? He could not know a damn thing about it. Nobody could.

She missed him the most. She missed him more than Quil and her garage. More than she had missed Emma, who she was now reunited with. Shit, it had only been a few days and she missed him. The worst of it was that she had to suffer in silence, for she couldn't even think about how _much_ she missed him without Paula or Sam getting too angry with her about it.

Her best friend was all but a forbidden topic in the pack. And she hated them for it.

Sam, she understood. But Paula . . .

Paula was the whole reason Julie had split her skin in the first place.

(Well, not really. It was all because of the Cullens, but Julie's stomach rolled whenever they came to mind — whenever _he_ came to mind — and so she squished those thoughts before they ever fully took form.)

When Lee had left that day, sporting his developing bruises and battered pride, she had waited just long enough for him to be out of sight before she'd charged across the reservation. And with her blood singing in her ears, moving faster than she'd ever thought possible, she'd hunted Paula down like a dog.

Hitting a girl might have been incomprehensible to Lee, but there was nothing stopping _her._

Except . . .

Julie had taken one look at the bitch before exploding. _One_ look before she'd completely lost her shit. She hadn't even gotten a punch in.

(But she'd gotten in plenty of swipes since — it was a shame they healed so quickly. Only two days ago she had chewed up Paula's leg in a rip-roaring fight so brutal that the other girl hadn't been able to stand for an hour.

It was better than nothing. And by no means did Julie now consider them even; her unwanted sister was going to spend an extremely long time paying for what she had done, what she had said.)

It had been painful, at first. Phasing. Julie had writhed in agony, not knowing what was happening to her — she could have sworn the fire engulfed her entirely, forging and welding her bones anew. Several minutes had passed into nothing by the time she'd been able to move again, and when she'd finally stood on her shaky legs they had collapsed from underneath her.

Now it was like an old friend, that fire, and she understood it for what it was. For the past few months it'd had her spinning out of control, building and building until reaching its crescendo and swallowing her whole. Now she knew how to wield it.

She stood in the clearing and closed her eyes.

After less than a week, Julie was already familiar with the way the flames flicked down her spine. She did not recoil from the twinges of pain as her arms and legs suddenly seized up before the phase took hold, and it was at the last moment that she allowed the heat to flood through her — wild, unchecked fire which raged for only a second until she threw her heavy paws against the earth.

 _Better,_ came a thought. _Again._

Julie growled, her razor-sharp claws digging deep marks into the dirt as she watched a replay of herself in Jade Cameron's mind: the concentration upon her human face, the split-second of hesitation before the prevailing shimmer of an oncoming phase. Then a huge, russet wolf replaced her, shaking out its fur.

Jade's unimpressed snort was hot against the night air, clouding before her wet snout. _Again,_ she repeated.

Julie growled for a second time, failing to pull the shutters down on her mind before Jade heard the thoughts which surfaced. Raw, personal, naked thoughts which were hers and hers alone, unfiltered and unrestrained.

But Jade, who had been the second to join the pack and had already spent months learning the control she was now trying to teach, was entirely indifferent. She'd heard it all before. _Her_ mind, Julie thought with a touch of jealousy, was frustratingly clear and calm (except for that sickening antechamber she'd permanently reserved for her boyfriend, because if Julie had been taught _anything_ it was that imprints were fucking weird).

 _Again,_ was all she instructed.

Had it been Sam standing there, Julie would have already snapped her teeth and lunged. It was why Jade had taken the Alpha's place — and had done so for the last four days and nights now — because Jules could actually stop herself from killing Jade.

Their Alpha, however, would not be so lucky.

Julie's birthright would not allow her to back down from the challenge Samantha Uley issued, consciously or otherwise, and she knew that she would not be able to rein herself in until the other girl yielded. Or died.

(Or used an Alpha-order, though Sam was still trying to work those right. She was forever leaving loopholes, and even when she _did_ get it right her words held about as much weight on Julie as a feather pillow. Sam was not supposed to lead, after all.)

It was better this way, because no matter how frustrated Jules got with Jade, no matter how angry, Jade's mere presence did not send her into a spasm like Sam's did. Julie could bicker and argue and fight with her, if she needed to, without fear of causing accidental death.

Jade huffed an impatient sound from where she sat, waiting for the other wolf to clear her mind and begin. Again. Again, again, again.

Fine.

Jules pawed at the ground and closed her eyes as she grappled for her centre, for the part of her which had not yet been overrun by the beast which she now knew lived inside of her. The beast she had become.

She tried to reel herself in, to coalesce back into the only body she'd known for fifteen years. This part was the hardest. It was not the change into wolf she struggled with, but rather it was the change _back_. After her first phase, it had taken her a whole twenty-two hours to find her two feet again.

 _Less time than it took anyone else,_ Jade reminded her. _It took me four days. Paula six. And Emma — she couldn't change back for nearly two weeks. Everyone struggles with it, at first._ And then, a little more tenderly, _You're doing really well._

Julie didn't much care for being compared to the others. Especially Sam, which was why Jade had artfully left her name out. Too many people wanted her to be better than Sam, wanted her to master her control more quickly than the rest — because then she would prove herself as an Alpha in her own right, and she could step into the role that should have been hers.

Which was exactly why Jade was watching her now, repeating the drill, over and over again, night after night until eventually there would be no hint of hesitation as Julie seamlessly phased back and forth.

 _It's not only that,_ Jade told her, and she cursed the shared mind of the pack for what was probably the hundredth time that night. There was not a moment of privacy, not a wayward thought hidden. _You need to learn control anyway_. _We've all been made to do this._

_Not as much as you've made me._

Jade didn't answer that — a reply in itself. She just remained sitting on her thick, brown fur and said, _Again._

* * *

It was not long after midnight that Sam's mind merged with the pack's — unexpectedly, because she wasn't due to relieve Jade until sunrise — and they all felt her following snarl reverberate across the pack's bond as if they had heard it in their own ears. But they could discern nothing from her head, her thoughts loud and messy as they bled into one another.

 _What happened?_ Jade questioned before the echo of the snarl died, already tensing herself to strategise. She was a good Second — Julie could grant the girl that much. She had been Sam's friend before this mess, and they worked well together.

Emma perked up from their monotonous running, her mind having spent the last hour lingering on Quil until the interruption. _What's wrong?_

Meanwhile, Paula was imagining finally being given leave to tear into yellow-eyed marble statues. Her teeth ached for it. _Is it the bloodsuckers?_

Julie, however, kept her silence and looped towards the eastern perimeter, sticking to her task of learning all the boundary lines whilst the others patrolled. She was less concerned than the rest of them; Sam had probably just lost her temper and phased without warning. They all did it. Elliott was proof of that.

That errant thought of hers was all it took for Sam's scrambled head to fix on her, suddenly turning murderous in her response, and within a fraction of a second they had both readied themselves for a fight despite there being tens of miles between them.

 _Fantastic,_ Paula drawled. _So much for a free night from the territorial bullshit. Can you two just fight to the death already? My money's on you, Sam._

Emma, who was nothing if not loyal, said, _I'll take Jules_.

_Great — Lee and Elliott can make banners for their girlfriends._

Both Sam and Julie snarled at Paula for that.

 _Shut up — all of you,_ Jade snapped. _Stand down, Julie._

She did no such thing.

Far away, within the reservation, Sam let the pack feel it as she bared her teeth in her warning to them all — but Julie knew who she aimed it at really, who she wanted to force to submit and surrender, and their sisters held their breath whilst Sam fought for her control, dashing through the forest and picking up her pace.

 _Well?_ Jade demanded.

Sam unleashed herself.

The privileges which came with being Alpha often afforded Sam a great deal of privacy — she could often conceal her bleeding emotions which blended with her thoughts, able to hide things from her pack if she decided. It was rare that she did so (something about strategy and communication and leading by example . . . or something, not that Julie particularly cared), and she did not hide herself from the pack now.

When Sam finally permitted them all to see what had happened, Julie came to a ground-breaking halt, skidding to a stop so abrupt that she left a deep track mark behind her. She almost phased right there and then, a move which would have surely sent her hurtling naked into the cold river.

Nobody paid her any attention, however, instead focused on Sam's memory of receiving a call from Bonnie. It seemed fleeting and almost unimportant to what they were all able to sense from Sam coming next, but she had their rapt attention all the same.

Sam had reached for the phone, wondering which member of her pack was calling so late — because it wasn't as if anybody else called at that time of night . . .

_"You've got incoming," Bonnie says, her husky tones sounding deeper than normal over the phone. Sam barely swallows her surprise at the Chief's warning (no, not Chief, **she's** the Chief now) when the older woman apologises. "I'm sorry. I couldn't stop him."_

And then Sam telling — no, _begging_ Elliott to stay inside before peeling into the fresh scent of the night air, hearing the owl hooting in the distance when—

_Lee storms the porch. "Where the fuck is she?!"_

_Sam's heart leaps at the sight of him (but it doesn't belong to him, not anymore, she knows that; hell, she loves him still) and an old pain registers. She fakes calm and asks, "Who?"_

_"Julie!" he roars, cheeks red. He is fuelled by more than his hate; he is angrier than she has ever seen in all the years they spent together — angrier than when she called time on their relationship, even. But God, he looks awful — she hadn't realised just how hard Paula had hit him, how long it will be before those marks disappear. Weeks. Did he even bother to ice his eye, his nose? Maybe it's fractured under that swelling . . ._

_And that's not the only thing she notices. Her gaze roves over him, searching for changes. They have not been this close in over half a year._

_His hair is shorter, and dark rings frame his eyes. His chest is broader. His cut-offs are riding higher above his knees than they used to. Is he taller? Has he noticed his shoelaces are undone?_

" _Leland," she says, looking back to that blazing stare of his. "It's not what you think. Honestly, I_ _—_ _"_

_"Hell it isn't!" he yells. "I don't care what you're doing with the rest of them, but you can't have her!"_

_Sam's anger bubbles, but she needs to leash the wolf which naturally claws to defend herself. She'd begged for death after hurting Elliott; she will not survive hurting Lee._

_"What does she matter to you?" she demands hotly, though she already knows the answer. Because she has felt her sister's affection for Lee, felt her confusion over what could be **more** between them (Samantha cannot blame the girl, not really, not when she too had found it so impossible not to love him herself). And because she knows this boy — she can see the unwavering loyalty in his eyes, the type he only gifts those who he cares most about in the whole world._

_(She had been one of those people, once.)_

_"She's my family_ _— more than you ever were!_ _" he bellows._

_Samantha understands then that Lee would burn for Julie, just as she would burn for Elliott. Lee does not know how to love any other way. And she had not expected it to crush her the way it does._

_The last piece of her old life dies._

_Lee surges another step forward._ _"You give her back, right now!"_

_It's then that Samantha feels Elliott. She feels him seconds before he touches her back, coming to stand at the side of her. He is the centre of her universe, and his splayed fingers on her spine is the only thing which reminds her to breathe._

_"I told you to stay inside," she tells him, her eyes on Lee and her voice impossibly even._

_Elliott doesn't answer her. Instead he says, "Lee — come on, pal, you don't need to—"_

_Lee's fist flies, and the scream that erupts from her own throat is unlike any sound she's made before._

_Elliott's jaw snaps to the side, and he has barely enough time to yell her name to stop her from retaliating before she has lunged for Lee and tackled him to the ground. She cannot phase, she will not phase, but her blood sings, incensed by the imprint and her vow to never see harm come to Elliott ever again. This is why she was made, why she was born, why she was put on this planet, because he is hers and she is his and_ _—_

_She and Lee roll off the wooden porch, their bodies tangled as they grapple for an advantage. She can't stop until she wins, not until Elliott is safe, and_ _she tries to pin Lee to the grass, a shield for her imprint, whilst his warm body tries to push her away, yelling **bitch** and **get off** and **don't fucking touch** **me!**_

_But that's all Lee does — he pushes and shoves, never raising a hand just as he refused to raise a hand to Paula. He just wants to get away from her, recoiling in his disgust, whilst Elliott shouts and shouts at them._

_It's only her imprint telling her to **stop** that Sam finally lets Lee tumble away, and h_ _e shakes so badly that he reminds her of her sisters. But it's just adrenaline, she knows, and she instantly leaps to Elliott, her back to him and arms thrown wide—_

_"Right," Lee spits, dark hair standing up on end, "protect **him**."_

_She snarls so loudly that Elliott shivers behind her. But Lee — he is half-feral and simply laughs, the sound dark and hollow in response. His nose is bleeding, though he doesn't pay it attention._

_"I'll kill you for this," he says, and Sam knows that he is not talking about what has happened here tonight._

Julie phased before she could be shown any more, gasping for air with tears streaming down her cheeks. They blinded her as she staggered to the river.

And vomited right into it, falling to her knees.


	11. xi

_xi._

_feel fire in my soul / and if it starts to burn i'll signal through the smoke_   
_canyon city, "be scared with me"_

* * *

**(Julie)**

She hadn't been sick like it since she'd found out about Beau.

Not that it was any kind of impressive record, considering she'd only discovered the truth a few days ago.

(She'd had to be pinned down by her sisters as she'd hurled her guts up, and when her shape had started blurring dangerously they'd been forced to let her go. It had been a hard task for them to catch her by the time Sam had finally arrived, quickly realising that one of her wolves was a hairsbreadth from crossing the boundary line.)

Julie washed her mouth out with the cold water from the river, her stomach rolling. It was a few minutes more before she was able to stand again, legs somewhat shaky, but it was the image of Lee's face at the forefront of her mind which balanced her, which kept her upright as a howl split the air.

The sound was a threat and an order in one. _Come back. Obey. Phase. Obey._

Julie ignored it easily, her hands surprisingly steady as she pulled her clothes from the leather cord around her ankle and sent one word right back.

_No._

She knew that she would have to fight Sam eventually. With her reluctance to become Alpha, soon there would come a time when Sam was going to have to beat her so thoroughly into submission that her wolf's instinctual desire would no longer threaten the pack's stability. There was no other way; they were already on the threshold of becoming so dysfunctional that they could barely run in formation, and it would surely get them all killed if one day they had to fight as the indestructible unit they were supposed to be.

 _Territorial bullshit,_ as Paula had so aptly named it. And she was not the only one — the whole pack recognised that Julie and Sam's wolves needed to settle on a new hierarchy before things got out of hand. There were bloodsuckers to kill, a tribe to protect.

The only bloodsuckers Julie wanted to kill were the same ones she was bound by the treaty to leave alone. The Cullens deserved to perish in the most brutal way possible for what they had done to Beau, for making him one of them. Of all the people, _Beau!_ And now, after failing so spectacularly before, they thought they were protecting him, refusing to move him and their goddamn stench out of Washington until they thought him _ready_.

Ready for what, Julie didn't know. She didn't care. Let him loose in mountain ranges elsewhere, _anywhere_ — wherever they would follow and could no longer trigger the change in Quileute teenagers. It was bad enough as it was that there were five in the pack, but there were _eight_ of them in their coven (or whatever the hell it was they called themselves). And the longer they stayed, the more girls there would be phasing to even up the numbers on both sides.

How was that fair?

More often than she liked to admit, Julie understood Paula's eagerness for an all-out war. It was only that dumb treaty keeping them at bay. A treaty which, as far as she was concerned, was null and void now that Beau had been changed. She could still scarcely believe that her mother had actually bought into that cock-and-bull story about him being bitten by another vampire.

Of course, killing those bloodsuckers would mean that Beau would have to be burned, too, though technically he was already dead. So what did it matter?

Julie would not mourn him this time.

Not that she really had to begin with.

That funk she'd gotten into back in March hadn't been about mourning him or grieving somebody she had loved, because in all honesty she hadn't really known him to begin with. Not like she knew Lee or Emma or Quil, anyway. Neither had it been been about what had happened on First Beach when she'd told him her tribe's legends, when he had looked at her like everything she'd had to say was interesting, like _she_ was interesting. It wasn't even about what _could've_ happened after that . . .

No. It was that she'd genuinely believed she'd been responsible for his truck careering off the road, just like she had been for her dad's wagon smacking into that tree. It was that she had taken him from Charlie as she had taken her father from her mother.

. . . And then she'd found out that she hadn't, and she had immediately decided that she was going to kill him herself the first opportunity she got. She would make sure the job was done properly this time.

She had spent _months_ hating herself because of him. Months wishing that she wasn't such a fuck-up, months wanting to just get things right for a change.

(Hell, she couldn't even get the Rabbit to run right, not without the master cylinder she so desperately needed and would cost an arm and leg to get. People didn't just throw vital parts like that on the scrap heap.)

Months wishing and wanting. Months wasted. Months of her friends and family thinking that she had been madly in love with the pale-faced boy from Forks, thinking there had been something going on with him that Julie hadn't told them about. And she couldn't have anybody knowing what she'd done, what she was capable of, that she wasn't so great with fixing things like they believed, so she'd just let them all think what they wanted.

Except for Lee. He was different.

Julie wasn't dumb. She was entirely aware that — to begin with, at least — he had stuck around for much the same reason she had kept him: they had both needed a friend, because he couldn't talk to Aaron and Adam about the things which made him hurt any more than she could bring herself to confide in Quil and Emma. They wouldn't have understood.

And that was what had bonded the two of them, in a way. Julie hadn't pretended to understand his pain and Lee hadn't pretended to understand hers. They didn't push or pry. They were just . . . _there_ for each other, letting each other see more than they'd ever let anyone else see, helping each other, stopping each other from falling too far into a place they might not have been able to come back from.

He had become her unlikely friend. Her _best_ friend, with his stupid jokes and dark humour and his crap taste in music, his offer of friendship and solidarity and loyalty. She hadn't quite realised just how deeply it ran on both sides until now.

She owed him. She owed him this one night of defiance for what he had done.

Julie just needed to make sure he knew that before Sam figured out how to work her Alpha-orders on somebody who had not been born to follow.

* * *

**(Leland)**

He was more pissed that he'd split his knuckles again than anything else. They bled as badly as his nose, but it was worth it — being able to knock Elliott on his traitor ass was worth every single damn second of pain, every single damn second of sickness he'd felt from having to see Sam again.

Now he had to find Julie.

It'd almost been midnight when he had tapped on her ground floor bedroom window, when the curtains had been open and a sliver of moonlight had revealed an empty bed. He'd tried the front door then, and he'd not felt a shred of guilt about the late hour after seeing Bonnie's face. A few hesitant words from the Chief had told him everything he'd needed to know.

Julie did not have mono. And for all that she had feared joining those other girls . . . Well, it was pretty obvious what had happened to her.

Lee still wasn't sure whether he'd really expected to find her with Sam and Elliott, but then he'd been in such a fit of rage that he hadn't even been sure what he'd been doing himself. He had _never_ seen red like that before. With lightning at his heels and his heart thundering a whole new rhythm, it had been a struggle to even remember his own name.

Now, at three in the morning, it was only dizziness and pure exhaustion Lee felt as he bent over his bathroom sink.

The cold water from the tap swirled in the basin, stained red from his fist and broken skin. His nose was a lost cause — he'd felt like he'd be lucky if he ever breathed out of it again. Something had sounded like it'd lodged itself loose as he'd scuffled with Sam, trying to throw her off him, and now that his adrenaline was fading the pain was worse than it had been before.

But it was worth it. So, so worth it.

He just had to figure the rest out now. He needed to find Julie, needed to protect his little sister. It had gone too far for him to think that Sarah was safe. For too long it had felt like there was this huge Sam-shaped shadow hanging over his life, but now it was darkening the rest of the reservation too. He would get Julie back, and he would not let Sam touch the rest of his family.

And while part of him hoped that he hadn't fucked things up by confronting her, the other part of him just did not care.

Because, really — how could things possibly get any worse?

* * *

Lee felt as if he'd barely closed his eyes when he was shaken out of his uneasy sleep. Blazing heat seared into his arm and he instantly recoiled away from it, his skull smacking against his bedside table as he tumbled out of bed.

"Oh, shit, sorry, sorry!"

Sprawled over his bedroom floor, legs twisted in his sheet, Lee groaned and cracked his eyes open. The back of his head throbbed as wildly as the rest of his face, but then — sudden realisation hit him within the darkness of the room.

"Julie?"

"Hey."

Heart lurching, Lee ungracefully scrambled for the switch for his lamp. He needed to see her, needed to know—

"No, wait a second," she said quietly, and damn him if he didn't freeze at the tone of her voice, the pleading sound within those words. Her hands came down on his and held them tightly. "I want to try something."

She tugged on his fingers then, coaxing him up. "Are you okay? That sounded like it hurt—"

"What the fuck, Jules?" he demanded, barely able to keep his voice above a whisper as he snapped back into himself. He tried to pull his hands away, but she wouldn't let go of him. "What are you doing?"

"Just stand up with me a second. Come on."

"I can hardly see you and—"

"Really? It doesn't seem that dark to me."

"—you feel like fucking furnace, like you're sick or something—"

"I know. Be quiet, okay? I don't want to wake anyone."

She pulled again, and Lee grudgingly let her lead him in the darkness, frustration rising as he followed the even darker outline of her shape above him. Until, finally, he was on his feet and she very hesitantly loosened her grip over his hands.

"You're not gonna fall down on me, are you?"

It was only the reminder of his family sleeping in the next rooms over that he wasn't yelling at her already. "No," he bit out, impatient and furious and confused and a hundred other emotions he hadn't sorted through yet. Hell, he wasn't sure that he even _wanted_ to.

"You're angry with me," she whispered.

"Turn the light on," he said instead of answering, yanking his hands away. It was too late, too dark — the moon was nowhere to be seen and the sun was an hour off yet. He had probably slept for all of an hour before . . . Wait, had she come through the window?

Julie heaved a huge breath, as if readying herself for something. Her shape dipped towards the lamp, reaching out slowly before flicking it on and—

"I knew it," he said, his voice like steel as light illuminated her and revealed her new shape. Her different features, different clothes — different everything. "I fucking _knew_ it."

Even turned away from him, her fingers still on the switch, head down and bent over his bedside table, Lee could see the changes in her. And, fuck — it hurt more than his fists, hurt more than the bruises over his body and his face, kicking him so swiftly in the gut that he knew it wasn't the pounding of his head which threatened to send him to the floor again.

Julie's shoulders tensed, her head still bowed over the lamp. "Just — wait, okay?"

She took another breath, deeper than the first, and slowly straightened herself as she turned to him. Her every movement was deliberate and looked as painful as the last until finally she met his eyes. She was silent, and then . . .

"Oh, _thank God,_ " she breathed, hands flying to her face. She laughed — she _laughed_ into her palms before dragging them down, her eyes shining.

"What?"

She grinned brightly, and she almost looked exactly like the girl he'd gone to hell and back for. But this girl was different. Still Julie, but . . . different. It should have been impossible, but she was even taller and looked older than he'd ever seen. Every soft edge of hers was lost, replaced with sharper lines and harder features that he didn't think he'd ever be able to get used to.

And her hair . . .

"Just checking," she told him. "Gotta tell you — I'm so relieved. If I . . . Well, that would have been real fucking messy if I had. I wasn't going to risk it, just in case . . . but I couldn't _not_ see you. I had to see you. I had to check. You know?"

He didn't. He had no idea.

But before he could demand what the hell it was she was talking about, her bright eyes turned wet and she leapt forward, wrapping her arms around his neck. She held on so tightly that he almost forgot to breathe.

"Thank fuck for that," she said into his shoulder. "We're still us."


	12. xii

_xii._

_they want you to be what they make you / it's already over and done_   
_3 doors down, "when you're young — acoustic_

* * *

**(Leland)**

Lee wasn't sure how long he stood like that, stunned and struggling to remember what it was to breathe whilst Julie clung to him, mumbling her relief into his skin, her tears dripping over his t-shirt.

 _We're still us_ , she'd said. But were they? No matter how many times she said it, chanting it like a mantra, did not make it true. She was different and yet the same, whilst he had never been more of at a loss in his life. Usually it was his anger which powered him and covered all this uncertainty up, and yet it was _now_ that had to be the time he struggled to hide it most.

He wanted to be mad. He wanted to remember that anger he'd had as she'd switched the light on. He wanted to shout himself as hoarse as he'd made himself on Elliott's front porch and shake her shoulders until she told him what had happened to her — he'd _promised_ himself that he was going to be mad and stay mad until the world righted itself, but here he was feeling like he wanted to do nothing but cry with her.

Of all things — crying! He hadn't cried since the day after Sam had left him, when he'd finally stopped hitting things long enough to think and feel.

It wasn't heartbreak or sadness he felt now — not even relief. It was helplessness and . . . fear, he supposed. Fear of what was to come after finally having lost a battle he felt like he'd been fighting for months, one which had taken his all friends and still threatened to take his family.

His anger about it would catch up with him soon — it always did these days, never far behind anything else he was feeling. But not yet. Not with Julie finally here, alive and burning and holding onto him as if nothing else mattered in her world.

She was _here_. She looked like five or six years had passed rather than days, but she was _here._

"I don't like your hair," he mumbled eventually, if only because he didn't know what to say to her, how to reply to her own murmurings. So he just let his arms finally settle around her, his face falling into that stupid, short hair which might as well have been blindly hacked off with a knife, and he held on, his shoulders dropping in surrender against her strange heat.

"It's awful, isn't it?" she agreed, her voice sort of muffled against his chest in sad resignation.

"Then why . . . ?" Lee leaned back and looked down at her, and it was with obvious reluctance that she stared back up at him, her gaze as hot as her skin.

"I can't stay long," she said instead of answering. She let her arms drop, slowly, and backed towards his bed before sinking into it. She wiped her eyes. "I'm not supposed to be here, and they'll probably realise where I've gone soon. They might have already. Luckily Sam isn't very good at—"

Julie made a strangled noise and grabbed for her throat, almost instantly waving Lee's hands away when they shot out towards her with a strangled, panicked noise of his own. She was choking. "Wait there, I'll get you some water," he said hurriedly. "Hang on."

But Jules just waved her hands again, shaking her head in protest as she swallowed around whatever it was stuck in her throat. The effort of it left her gasping for air. "God _damn_ it," she moaned. "Okay, maybe she's better than I thought. _Ugh._ I hate her."

"You hate her," Lee repeated, dull and disbelieving as his panic abated.

Jules pulled a face. "I can see why you think I don't. But it's not like that, I have to — _shit._ " She rubbed at her chest and scowled fiercely. "That's going to get annoying."

"You _have_ to?" he asked incredulously. The idea that Julie was being _made_ to do things, that she _had_ to . . .

"Yes, I _have_ to. But she didn't say I couldn't see you, she just said I couldn't _tell_ you. It was so vague I thought I'd get away with it. Or I'd just be able to tell you that—" Julie closed her eyes and sucked in a breath, hand still on her chest. "Fine, so not _tell_ you, but something to make you understand. You deserve to know what I really — oh, for God's sake."

Lee watched as she roughly ran her hands through her hair, feeling like he could do nothing but. He had absolutely no idea what was going on, what she was trying to tell him. The only plus side was that his eyes weren't burning with the threat of tears anymore, however he _was_ slowly but surely losing his patience and rediscovering that anger he had momentarily lost. "You're not making any sense."

"I know, I know. I'm sorry." And she sounded as if she genuinely meant it, but still it infuriated him like nothing else that she was finally here but he was still as clueless as he had been before, unable to do anything as she all but choked on thin air and struggled to get her words out.

"So Sam rules your life now," he said. He had half a mind to go back out there, down his tree and across the reservation again. Maybe he'd get another swing in at Elliott. It wasn't as if he could do any more damage to himself, was it?

"No. Yes. In a way, I suppose," Julie answered quickly. "Yes, but _no._ I'm still me, Lee."

Lee crossed his arms, if only to stop his hands from trembling and reaching out for her. Maybe now was the time to start shaking her shoulders, and damn it all if the whole house woke up to him yelling at her.

"You don't look like you," he retorted flatly. "You look like . . . you look like Emma. And Paula."

Julie's laugh was bitter and twisted like nothing he'd heard ever slip from her mouth before. This was a side of her he did not know, not even after all that time they had spent getting to know each other and becoming as close as they had.

"Don't let Emma hear you say that."

"Why?"

"Because she — look, I can't, okay?" Julie looked up at him, pleading. "I had to see you, I just didn't think it was going to be this _hard_ . . . I want to tell you, I do. I don't care if they're going to kill me for it, but — if anything, I'm glad I didn't — _fuck_ — I wish I could talk to you _properly_!" she hissed fervently, pulling at her hair. "I don't understand — you're Quileute! I didn't think the rules would apply to you too!"

That — right there, that was enough for his own sound of outrage to bubble out of him and his breath to come hard and fast as he all but yelled, " _What is going on?_ What are they _doing_ to you—"

Julie hushed him, half-panicked with wary eyes darting towards his door. Her voice dropped. "I want to tell you," she repeated. "I _need_ to tell you but I—" She squinted her eyes, her teeth clenched and forehead wrinkled in effort for a few long moments until eventually her breath whooshed out of her as if she'd been holding it. "I can't do it."

"Why not!" he demanded, his words more forceful this time, ignoring the way she waved her hand to quieten him. "They don't own you, Jules. You can do whatever you want, say whatever you want!"

Julie's face fell, her hands gripping the edges of his mattress. "I wish I could."

Her words seemed final, somehow.

His head pounding, Lee closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths before coming to sit beside her — either that, or he felt as if he might topple to the floor soon enough, tired and drained and just so _done_ with it all. He might as well have thrown himself at her knees and begged, for all the good it would do.

They sat there in silence for a moment, and before long Jules sagged and put her head against his arm, sighing deeply.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Yeah, me too."

"What have _you_ got to be sorry about?"

"All of it." If he'd tried harder . . . "Mostly all of it. I mean, I hit Elliott, but I'm not sorry about that."

"You shouldn't be," she replied, reaching for his hand. She seemed as if she were studying the injuries which had not been there before, turning it this way and that within her own.

"He called me _pal_. So I hit him."

"I know," she said, tracing the shape of his knuckles. "He deserved it."

Lee didn't want to know how she knew already, why she thought that. He didn't even want to know why she was out and dressed in nothing but an old ratty tank top and cut offs at this time of night with a temperature that should have meant she was sick.

"Let me guess," he said instead of asking those things, "you hate him too?"

"I hate anyone who hurts you," she told him simply, pressing her forehead into his shoulder. "Myself included." She squeezed his fingers gently like she was being mindful of the cuts which were already scabbing over. "I just wish . . . I'm going to figure this out, okay? I promise. But when she finds out I've come to see you she's going to—"

Jules gasped again, as if she were drowning and surfacing for air.

"Jules . . ."

"I'm okay." She waved him off — again — and sat up straight. "Really. Well, I'm not, but — I might not be able to come back for a while when she finds out. I'm going to work on it, though."

"So I'll come to you," he said, in the way somebody might have followed the words on with a ' _duh'._

Julie smiled sadly, still looking down at their joined hands and refusing to meet his eyes. "She might not like that."

"I don't really care what she thinks, kid. You might be under this illusion that she can tell _you_ what to do, but she can't order _me_ about. She never could before."

He couldn't say much more than that; he was already treading in deep water as far as Samantha Uley was concerned, his old scars already having been torn more than he could stand. If he never saw her again it would be too soon.

"It's not like that. She . . . she just wants everyone to be safe, I guess. Deep down."

Lee scoffed derisively, his limit nearly reached. "Right. Is that why you think she's going to keep you away after she finds out you've come here? Because I'm dangerous?"

"Not you. Me," she whispered, pained. " _I'm_ dangerous. But . . . if I thought I'd be putting you at risk then I wouldn't have come. You know that, right?"

There was that pleading tone in her voice again. Fuck, how he hated that sound. And all he could say in return to ease it was, "I know," because the thought that _Julie_ was dangerous was ridiculous — just like thinking the same thing of little Sarah was.

Julie's head snapped back toward the window then, and her eyes hardened in the light from the lamp. "I . . . I have to go. I think they've figured it out. I was lucky enough to get past them and stay as long as I have."

"Don't go," he found himself saying before he could consider his next words, jumping to his feet at the same time she did. "Stay. We'll get some of your stuff together and you can bunk with Sarah or something. They won't get you here."

"They will. Your mom — well, I don't think she'd be happy about that."

Lee didn't miss that the way she'd said _'your mom'_ had sounded as if it had been the beginning of another sentence. Another sentence which she could not say, like the so many others she hadn't been able to finish.

Whatever this was, his mom knew about it. How many other people were lying to him? To the tribe?

"So we'll go somewhere else," he said. Away from the secrets.

"Where?"

"I don't know. Anywhere they can't get you."

"I can't do that, Lee. This is kind of like a life sentence sort of thing." Julie laughed to herself, the sound bleak and dark. "Longer, maybe. But it's a really cool offer," she added softly, putting her hand against his arm. "I would if I could."

Lee groaned. He'd already lost the battle, he knew, but that wouldn't stop him from trying still. "What then? What can I do?"

Jules looked towards the window and then back to him, mulling it over. The concentration on her face made the new lines and sharp edges seem even more prominent. "If you could — I don't know if it'll work, but if you _guessed . . ._ Maybe that would make it better for us. It would let me off the hook. You'd understand . . . You already know the—"

She broke off again, but he pressed her further. "Know the what?"

"The . . . _Everything,_ " she eventually blurted, the one word causing her obvious pain. She closed her eyes and spoke slowly, "Who we are. Our tribe. Quileute. Think about it."

He tried. He thought back over the conversation they'd already had, what clues she had been trying to give him throughout. "You said — about the rules. That you didn't think it would be the same for me because I'm Quileute, too."

Julie nodded eagerly, urging him on. "Right. You already _know_ , Lee, that's the worst thing. You just have to figure it out. Put the pieces together."

"But I _don't_. I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"You will. You _have_ to. Please. You've been hearing it all your life. Just like me. Just . . . try, okay?"

"Hearing _what?_ "

She didn't answer, instead twisting back towards the window. Her face twisted, and he thought she might have been scowling.

"They're calling. I _really_ have to go," she told him, sounding thoroughly guilty but heading towards it all the same. Like she was being drawn to it. Like she could truly hear them, calling her.

When she swung her legs out, Lee jumped again. "Don't be stupid. Use the front door. You'll break your leg."

"Hah! No. I won't get hurt." Her words were more confident now. She rocked slightly upon the frame as she looked down into the front yard, considering the drop and completely disregarding the tree standing within arm's reach before her. "I've jumped higher."

"I don't care—"

But she jumped anyway. Lee all but flung himself out with her, staring down in his disbelief as she rolled on the balls of her feet.

" _Sweet_ ," she said, her whisper carrying. She turned and looked back up at his bulging eyes from above, grinning. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Dangerous, more like," he whispered back furiously.

Julie rolled her eyes. Then she waved, waiting only a moment more for him to raise his own hand in return before she took off in a run. And Lee . . . He just watched her go, still staring down the street until the sun rose, feeling just as confused and hopeless as he had before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this really long note justifying Julie not imprinting on Lee in response to the mixed reactions, but it was in danger of becoming this self-indulgent essay worthy of a chapter so I scrapped it. I'll just say this (in as few words as possible):
> 
> 1\. I'm trying to stick to canon as best I can, save for throwing timelines to the wind. There will be no Renesmee (hallelujah) so, arguably, no imprint for Julie.
> 
> 2\. It might have been easier for Julie to imprint (there was a very valid protest that Lee would have learned the truth and would have been granted more protection) but ultimately I believe that whether Jacob's character is a boy or girl he will always be the champion of Choice and Free Will. And, with what she has seen in Jade and Sam so far, I think Julie would have had a very genuine fear about imprinting on her male best friend and would have been relieved when she didn't — especially knowing that, despite her own feelings, Lee has a variety of his own issues, including still being fairly cut up over Sam and being so defensive/conflicted/nervous about age differences. Had he been forced into letting any of that go, I probably would have had to write another twenty chapters; his and Leah's unquestionable love for Sam/Samantha is one of the reasons I'm having so much trouble getting my head in the game to write for Between Who You Are and keeping it within a reasonable word limit . . . but that's another issue.
> 
> That said, I'm forever grateful for all your wonderful insight and thought-provoking reviews. Amazing what a couple of gender changes can inspire!


	13. xiii

_xiii._

_the moment i surrender, bury me in the ground_   
_daughtry, "white flag"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

If anyone were to ask Lee what he'd been watching on the television for the last hour, he wouldn't be able to tell them. He'd only gotten out of bed and made it as far as the couch because he'd felt like the walls of his room had been closing in around him — and he was feeling no better about it whilst having to fight for leg room with Sarah on the cushions. He hated being cooped up.

(He'd left the window open as wide as it had been since Julie had left, hoping the cool air would settle him, but it hadn't helped. He couldn't stop thinking about the way she'd leapt out of it, the way she'd whispered in awe of herself after landing on her feet. And maybe — maybe he'd left it open for the rest of the night because he had been wishing she might have come back, though he would never admit it.)

He was restless, which was only usually solved by going for a run. But he was also tired, sore and irritable, and he didn't feel brave enough facing the rest of the world with his busted face and only his errant thoughts for company. Especially not if Sam was out and looking for some kind of payback for what he'd done to Elliott.

The traitor.

Beside him, Sarah turned a page of the book she'd had her head stuck in for the last hour. They'd said very little to each other since he'd dragged himself downstairs and they'd begun vying for couch space. And while silence was not unusual for Lee, where his little sister was concerned it usually meant that she was building up to something. The last time she'd been so quiet, it had taken her half a morning to blurt that she'd stained his favourite sweatshirt with her nail varnish.

After turning a few more pages, Sarah poked her toes into his hip and demanded his attention. But her eyes never left her book, almost as if she didn't really care for the answer she sought.

Lee knew otherwise.

"Where did the new bruises come from?" she asked.

"Don't know what you're talking about."

"Right," she replied, scoffing as she turned another page — although Lee had the feeling that she was paying as much attention to the words on paper as he was paying the faces on the flickering screen.

(Yes, she cared. Far more than she was allowing herself to let on, and he wondered why that was. Because of him? Because she was worried how he would react?

He had to admit that was most likely. He knew that he hadn't been very good company as of late, and he was worse today than ever before. If he could not longer trust himself to keep his head, his temper, how could anyone else?)

"Right," Sarah said again. "S'pose you don't know anything about all that shouting last night either."

"Nope."

"Mm-hm. Well, I could have sworn it was you. Thin walls."

"Maybe I was having a bad dream," he replied blandly, crossing his arms and leaning back into the cushions. It _felt_ like a bad dream — all of it.

"So was Julie, by the sounds of it."

Lee's head snapped towards his little sister, who adopted a look of innocence as she met his gaze over her book. She raised her brows, a silent challenge for him to argue with her. And when it didn't come, she smirked and turned back down to her book.

"Don't worry," she said, her voice light as she settled back in and turned yet another page. "Mom and Dad didn't hear. You know Mom's pills knock her out. Which is probably a good thing, considering how loud Dad snores. The world could be ending and they wouldn't even know it."

Lee pressed his lips together, keeping his silence and willing the rest of his face to remain disinterested. Sarah had learned how to feign such things from him, after all, and if anyone was going to make him break then it would be her. But — no. He'd not even had nine hours to get his head together, let alone keep it screwed on; he couldn't crack now. Not when he had Julie's secret to figure out. Not when she needed his help.

"Never heard you two shout at each other before," Sarah continued in the same deceptive tone. "Must have been serious, especially since Mom said Jules is so sick and all."

Silence.

His sister closed her book and edged closer, her voice suddenly lowering conspiratorially despite there being nobody else to hear it. "But she's not — sick, I mean. Is she."

Lee closed his eyes. It was an effort to not drop his head back on the couch, to not groan and push Sarah away. Because he loved his sister. He really did. But there were some times that the little punk just drove him absolutely insane, no matter how well she meant.

If she knew how he felt, it didn't faze her. But then, it rarely did; Sarah was the most level-headed, easy-going and happy thirteen-year-old on the Rez. Smart, too. Smart enough to know things in her house, with her brother, weren't quite right — no matter what she'd overheard.

His silence was more than the confirmation she needed, and her resulting hum was somewhat self-satisfactory. "I didn't think so. I saw what you were looking at on the computer."

Of course she did. She saw everything, knew everything. More than he had at her age. Nevermind that he hadn't bothered to delete the history, because he didn't care that his searching meant that he didn't trust his mom's excuses anymore, didn't care that his family would see the meaning behind it and know how he felt.

Let them — let his mom think what she wanted. She was the one keeping secrets, after all. Why should he feel guilty?

"What time did Mom and Dad leave?" he asked instead of answering, shamelessly changing the conversation and turning away from Sarah.

His dad's car had been off the drive long before Lee had woken and managed to roll out of bed. His mom was due for more tests and had finally scheduled an appointment at Saul's urging (the arguments having been far worse than anything Sarah might have heard last night), however limited those tests could possibly be at the Clinic. It seemed the whole reservation had suddenly developed an aversion for the main hospital in Forks within the last year or so for no good reason.

Sarah shrugged and opened her book again. "Early." She thumbed through the pages, searching for where she'd left off, and then said, "You're really not gonna talk about it, huh?"

"Nope."

She was quiet for a moment, and then sighed heavily. "I know you think I'm just a dumb kid, but—"

Lee gave in and tilted his head to the side against the back cushions, feeling the guilt working its way over his face. "I don't think that."

Her lips twisted. "Fine — that I live to annoy you, then."

"That's your job, though, as the youngest."

"And your job is to protect me from everything? Even something I might be able to help with?" she challenged, frowning.

Lee blew a breath and scrubbed his hand over his cheek, feeling prickly hair he hadn't tamed for a few days and the bruises which ached like hell.

"I don't — I don't even know what's going on. Not really."

But yes. He would protect her from it, if he could. Protect her from whatever it was that was spreading around the Rez and taking the girls, changing them. Whatever it was that had changed Emma and then Julie, that would maybe change Quil next and then his little sister too and all their friends.

"Julie's not sick, no," he admitted with another sigh when Sarah didn't say anything. Her persistent, warm stare was enough. "She's . . . different. Changed. Like Sam changed."

That seemed to resonate with Sarah, as he knew it would. "Oh."

"Yep," he replied, lips popping with his bitterness.

"Maybe if you talked to her . . . Sam, I mean, she might—"

"I did that. Sort of."

Sarah looked at his face, her stare close and hot as comprehension cleared in her eyes which roved over the marks on his skin and she put the pieces of the story together in her head. As she made assumptions.

And then, "She hit you?"

"No. Elliott got in the way."

Lee didn't have it in him to say anything more, not even to protest that he hadn't really gone looking for a fight like Sarah likely thought. Anyone who was Quileute knew whose blood Lee had been gunning for during these past months; nobody would have believed him if he'd said otherwise, not even if he'd said . . .

 _Anyone who was Quileute_.

The thought struck him, reminding him of something Julie had said as she'd fought to get her words out. He looked at the book in Sarah's lap she still was hardly paying any attention to and then sat up a little straighter.

 _You've been hearing it all your life,_ Julie had said.

"Where's that book," he blurted suddenly, "y'know, the one Mom takes with her to her Council meetings sometimes?"

The one that all the Council members held a copy of, that they'd all read to their children as bedtime stories. The one they all knew by heart after a lifetime of being taught. The one they all held like a Bible.

"The handwritten one?" Sarah pouted, brow creasing contemplatively as she finally looked away from his bruises and over his shoulder. "I haven't seen it in a while." She shrugged. "Ask her when she gets back."

Sure. Asking their mom was something he definitely wasn't going to do. If it had anything to do with the secrets she was keeping — the secrets Julie had not been able to voice — Lee couldn't help but think his mom would likely hide it from him. Just like she was trying to hide and cover up everything else with shitty excuses and lying about where she was going.

"No. It's alright." He tried to keep his voice casual. "She's — she's probably going to be stressed when she comes home."

"It's just tests, right? She has them all the time." Sarah struggled to keep the concern out of her voice and curled in on herself, tucking her feet underneath her.

"Right," he replied. Their mom did spend an awful lot of time with doctors, so it was nothing out of the ordinary. And the word 'tests' always brought a great deal of unease into the house. Their dad dealt with it by making his smoothies. Holly always dealt with it by rolling her eyes. Lee and Sarah dealt with it by talking about it as little as possible, as if not mentioning it made it not real.

(He never said that he'd been good at talking.)

"Ask Mom about the book," Sarah suggested quietly over the commercial after a while of thoughtful silence. "You'll probably cheer her up by being more interested in the stories. You know she's really proud about that sort of stuff."

"Superstitious, you mean."

Sarah snorted, the mood thankfully lightened. Glad for the distraction, Lee thought. "Don't say _that_ when you ask her for a history lesson."

"You think . . . Do you think that's what it is? History? Not legends?" Lee asked, his stomach feeling oddly heavy since he'd remembered Julie's words.

"Some of it, I guess. The Great Flood, yeah. But the rest of it . . ." Sarah laughed then. "You remember the story about Dask'iya? Mom used to tell you that one all the time to get you to behave."

Lee laughed with his sister despite himself, despite the lead in his stomach and the tightness in his throat. He didn't dare think any further about it — why he felt that way. Not until he escaped back to his room.

It was absurd — truly — but what if . . .

Sarah snapped him out of it as she continued. "Not that it ever worked. Not even when she used to say you were raised by wolves and we adopted you." She grinned. "And Taha Aki would come back out of the forest to take you back because you couldn't be tamed. She'll probably use that one again if you go looking for another fight."

Lee's own grin felt forced, but he kept it on his face even as he turned back to the television.

What if.


	14. xiv

_xiv._

_i'm just dreaming / counting the ways to where you are_   
_five for fighting, "100 years"_

* * *

**(Julie)**

Double patrols. That was her punishment for sneaking out to see Lee. And though she was only three days into her indefinite sentence (Sam had been _that_ furious with her that Julie reckoned that she probably wasn't going to see the inside of her garage for at least a month if Sam had her way) she was already yawning and all but falling asleep on her feet as she walked into Elliott's kitchen a half hour before her next shift.

The right side of his face dipped into a frown. "You don't look so good, Jules."

That would be because she hadn't slept for more than four hours before having to get up and run again. Double patrols were exhausting, and her sisters were already rubbing it in with all their sudden extra free time now that she was filling in for most of them. Nobody (except for Emma, who was loyal to a fault) was on her side. Not even Bonnie.

Julie scowled and threw Elliott a vulgar gesture, despite knowing there would be hell to pay for it later when he spilled all to Sam. Stupid imprints. "Better than you," she bit back uncharitably, moody with exhaustion and from missing her friend. To hell with it. "Stepped in to take any more punches lately?"

He didn't rise to the bait. He never did, unlike Paula, who was always ready for a rip-roaring fight whenever needed. "Funny. Tried to give away any more tribe secrets lately?"

Touche.

Julie dropped unceremoniously into a seat the table and shrugged. "He'll figure it out. I know he will." _You can't say that you don't want him to,_ she added silently. "Things will be better when he does."

"Do you really want him involved in all of this?" Elliott asked, his voice deceptively neutral as he kept his face down and elbows deep in flour on what was probably his tenth attempt at making bread. It was kind of a running joke how bad of a cook he was; Paula was convinced they were all going to starve before the week was out.

Paula said that every week, apparently.

"Things will be better," Julie said again. "Better than letting him think I'd ditched him."

Elliott looked up then, showing her both sides of his face which had been injured by the two people he loved most to make his point. One side scarred from claws, the other bruised a hideous purple-blue from his cousin's fist. "We all have to make sacrifices, Jules."

She looked away. "Save me the lecture."

He shrugged and continued kneading his dough, annoyingly calm. "If you want."

What she really wanted was to tell Lee that he'd packed enough force behind his punch that the left side of Elliott's face probably wasn't going to heal for a week. He would have been pleased, she thought, after wanting to get his revenge for so long — although she hadn't allowed herself to seem too satisfied about it. Her own lingering pride that Lee had dealt such a blow would only get her into a different world of trouble when her thoughts gave her away. Because Elliott was pack, just as Kam was, and imprints were honoured, revered. They ranked as high as the Alpha herself, separate and yet the same. For Julie to be pleased Elliott had been hurt was equivalent to wishing pain on them all.

(Not that it stopped her from being so rude. He deserved it. And Lee would never forgive her for switching teams if she started being nice now.)

Stupid imprints.

Of course, she knew she wouldn't have thought like that had she imprinted on Lee. Sure, she'd toyed with the idea at first — entertained it, even, after learning about it. Through her sisters' memories, she had felt Samantha's crippling desire for Elliott and Jade's sickening adoration for Kam as if it had all been her own, and she'd wondered what it would be like if she'd felt like that . . .

Now, days later, Julie still wasn't sure which emotion had first struck her when she'd looked at Lee: the relief, or the disappointment that nothing happened. But, after snapping back into herself that night, she also remembered how she'd silently thrown up a thankful prayer to the spirits. And she had meant what she'd said about it being nine kinds of messy, even if Lee hadn't understood.

Yes, she would have felt differently if she had imprinted. And eventually Lee would have, too. But Julie knew him as well as she knew herself, and whatever part of themselves they would've been allowed to keep after accepting that kind of bond would have resented it for the rest of their lives. She was sure of that.

Whatever it was between them, whatever she felt (and whatever he _didn't_ feel), Julie wanted it to be real.

Besides, it was kind of a pathetic look — her sisters falling over their feet for their boyfriends, and their boyfriends turning into puddles of muck at near mention of their significant wolf. Lee would have just laughed at her for it, anyway. He would have laughed at himself.

Maybe.

No. It was better — that she hadn't. But that didn't mean that she had to roll over and submit to Sam's will. It didn't mean that she couldn't be friends with him anymore. It didn't mean that she didn't have a chance at something real, whatever 'real' was going to be for her now whether she imprinted on somebody or not.

It didn't mean _anything_. It didn't matter what Sam said.

Speaking of. "Where is everyone?"

"Uh—" Elliott straightened, looking towards the window thoughtfully as he mentally accounted for everybody. "Sam's at a Council meeting—" he explained, because clearly his whole life began and ended with the girl (stupid imprints) "—and Jade's on patrol with Emma until you switch out with her. Kam's at home studying. Summer school or something. And Paula's off doing whatever she does when she goes off on her own, I don't know." He huffed. "Am I supposed to add the yeast _before_ or _after_ the water?"

"Who cares," Julie replied, picking at one of the burnt muffins on the table and knowing full well what Paula did when she went off on her own. Sulking, brooding, looking for a brawl. "Order a pizza."

"Do you know how much we've spent on take-out in these last few days alone?" He shook his head. "No. No more pizza."

Jules wondered whether her teeth would crack on the muffin if she threw the whole thing in her mouth to get it over with. It really was awful, and tasted nothing like blueberry. More charcoal, like she'd held it above one of their bonfires. "So? I think Paula wants to get into the delivery boy's pants. At least she wouldn't be so pissy if you gave her that."

Elliott looked like he was trying to bite back his smile, but Jules wasn't so sure underneath that brilliant bruise of his. She _really_ wished that she could see Lee to tell him; he would have been as pleased as she was proud. Maybe she could slip him a note.

"Still not worked it out with her, huh?"

"Nope. Not going to either."

"I really think—"

Jules groaned, cutting him off. "Please don't. And don't get Sam involved over it again either. She's already pissed with me."

Elliott let loose his smile at the mention of his girlfriend (no — his fiancée) and deflated instantly. Gross. "Okay."

Stupid imprints.

Sam's tie to Elliott was most definitely the reason she had come down so hard. She was more than just pissed. Less than a minute after phasing back that night and listening to her rage, Julie had felt a hundred different orders snap into place around her, over her, inside her. A hundred different orders telling her that no, she couldn't see Lee anymore; no, they couldn't be friends; and _no, Julie, you're not going to spend the next week trying to find any loopholes, because there won't be any._

Except there was a loophole — just one. Julie couldn't seek Lee out, but that didn't stop him from coming to find _her._ He had said as much within the four walls of his bedroom to her.

The only thing Sam could think of to stop that was to put Julie on indefinite double patrols, because she had about as much chance of stopping Lee from doing anything as she did the wind blowing. And if Lee couldn't find Julie, who was stuck running perimeter lines for the rest of her life, then Sam considered it a problem solved.

But if Julie had come to know anything about her friend in these last few months, it was that when Lee wanted to do something he could not be stopped. Plus, she had to go home sometime. Bonnie couldn't be left on her own for so long.

And if Lee knew that it was _Sam_ trying to stop him, then — well, he'd only resist all the more.

Julie was banking on it.

All she had to do was wait.


	15. xv

_xv._

_i will hold as long as you like / just promise me we'll be alright_   
_mumford & sons, "ghosts that we knew"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

Maybe it was the early hour, or a sense of deja vu, but Bonnie was not all too welcoming the next time he knocked on her door. She stared at him with her bushy eyebrows raised and her arms crossed tightly against her chest, and Lee had the sense that she was _daring_ him to rant and rage and demand to see Julie all over again. She seemed prepared for it, this time, ready and waiting.

Lee said nothing. He probably should have been asking for her forgiveness, considering that last time he'd spoken to her, but then it wasn't as if Bonnie was going to apologise to _him_ for keeping all her secrets, was it? _She_ wasn't going to apologise for being just as stubborn, and she certainly wasn't going to apologise for allowing Julie to be terrified for all those weeks. After all, it was pretty clear that Bonnie — and his own mom — thought there were more important things in the world. More important than the happiness and sanity of their kids. He hadn't been able to look Holly in the eye for days now.

Bonnie raised her chin. "She's not here," she told him tersely, apparently long over the pretence of Julie being bed bound from mono.

Well, at least they'd gotten past that.

"And she won't be for a while, I don't think," she added with hardened eyes. "I'll tell her you came by."

Somehow, Lee didn't trust that she would. "Where is she?"

"I don't know. With Sam, probably," Bonnie said, a hint of unkindness in her words, although the suggestion that Julie had become firm buddies with his ex-girlfriend-almost-fiancée didn't hurt as much as it would have done a week ago. He knew better. Knew Julie better.

Bonnie waved a hand to the box he was cradling underneath one of his arms. "You want me to pass that on?"

Lee's fingers pressed into the cheap cardboard. "It's fine," he replied with the same hardness, stepping away with a wave as dismissive as he dared before starting down the ramp and towards the garage. "I'll wait. She'll know where I am."

A few seconds of silence passed during which Lee thought Bonnie was finally going to begin shouting at him. He tensed as he heard her roll her chair forwards, but he knew it was unlikely she would follow. The ground towards the garage turned so uneven that she had trouble forcing her chair over it, and he'd spent enough time at the Blacks' to know she hadn't attempted it since March, when Julie had locked herself in — and probably not for a long time before that.

"Leland." Her voice was quieter than he expected, her face somewhat softer when he looked over his shoulder and resisted the temptation to raise an eyebrow. "I know you care about her, son, but this . . . This isn't something that concerns you."

He didn't break his gaze. "Should I go and get Sarah, then?"

Bonnie's eyes widened a fraction before dipping into a deep frown, cold and disapproving. "I don't know what you know, or what you _think_ you know—" she began, her hand coming to her chest and curling around whatever was held on the end of that cord hanging from her neck there "—but I'll tell you now that you are wrong."

Lee watched as Mrs. Black's fingers idly twisted her necklace for a moment. He had never seen, had never asked what it was she kept so close to her heart — she'd had the leather cord around her neck for as long as he could remember and he'd never questioned it. Probably because his parents both wore their wedding rings around their necks on similar intricately woven chains. It wasn't uncommon. And after George — Mr. Black — had died . . . Well, it seemed rude to ask, so Lee never had. But it was definitely something, evident with the way Bonnie held onto it protectively like it was something that needed to be kept guarded from him. He wondered whether it had anything to do with the journal he'd been reading non-stop for the last few days, if it was another one of the woman's secrets.

Her gaze followed his, down to her chest, and her hand dropped. The frown remained. "Your mom's going to wonder where you got to."

His laugh was flat, as unforgiving as Bonnie's face was. He could hardly hear it over the sound of his blood roaring in his ears again. It seemed as if it rarely ever stopped these days. "No, she won't."

"Lee—"

"I'll wait," he said again, turning his back once more and striding away. And by the time he'd reached the garage, Bonnie had disappeared back into the house. Probably to call his mom — or worse, Sam. Who would turn up first to drag him away? His mom, who was so hellbent on keeping her secrets, or Sam, who was so hellbent on ruining his life? (Who _had_ ruined his life, with her lies and empty promises and her betrayal.)

A grunt escaped him at the thought. Let them come.

He pushed his way into the garage, ready to set himself up on his usual rusty camping chair where he planned to wait all day and night for Julie, if he had to — except . . . There she was, sitting in it already, her arms crossed against her stomach and her chin tucked into her chest as she slept.

She jerked awake when the large wooden door hit the wall, her whole body jumping to full alert even as the sleep cleared from her eyes. He was sure that he heard one of the chair's plastic arms crack underneath her grip as she tensed and leaned forward, preparing to spring into action.

In his surprise of finding her, he blurted, "What are you doing here?"

The ready-to-kill look upon her face morphed into confusion, although she didn't drop her guard. Her new features appeared even fiercer in the early daylight. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Bonnie said you were out."

Julie looked behind him, at the door which was still bouncing off the wall behind him, and then back. Lee wasn't sure whether he'd expected her to have changed again, but he was relieved to see that, aside from that savage fierceness, she was much the same — the same as he had last seen her, anyway, with her short hair, shabby clothes and tired eyes.

Relieved, yes, but he was still uneasy about it, still in awe of the differences compared to the fifteen-year-old he knew. There was nothing of the carefree teenager in his best friend's face anymore as she scowled at the mention of her mother. She was older. Not just in the way she looked now, tall and strong, all hints of her young teenage years gone, but in the way she acted and the way she'd spoken within his room. Like she had jumped from fifteen to twenty-five and gained all the wisdom and experience of life overnight.

"You saw her?"

"She hates me," he said plainly.

Very slowly, Jules prised her fingers from the arms of the chair, though she continued to scan the scene around her — as if she didn't want to believe it was quite safe yet, as if she were worried she was going to be found by someone else.

"She doesn't know you're in here, does she."

Jules shook her head.

Lee sighed. "You want me to shut the door?"

"No. It's fine," she muttered, stretching her arms up and her long legs out. The rusty garden chair creaked underneath her. "I was just catching up on a few hours. Sam only let me off before dawn."

Lee closed the door anyway. "Why are you sleeping in here?"

"As good a place as any," she said with a shrug.

"It's cold in here."

Julie smiled wanly, hands falling in her lap as she leaned back and relaxed some. "Doesn't bother me."

"No," he said, remembering the warmth he'd felt when she'd shaken him awake, and all that had followed, "I don't suppose it would." He shook his head as if he could rid himself of that dangerous thought. "But normal people, they sleep in their beds, Jules."

When she didn't answer, he sighed. "You look like shit."

She snorted. "Thanks"

"When was the last time you slept? Properly?" he asked before she could continue to be difficult about it. Sleeping in an old chair in her garage was not an answer to be accepted.

"Uh—" Her nose wrinkled as she closed her eyes for a moment, and the shadows underneath them were so dark they could have been bruises. "I don't know. A few days ago. I've been trying to grab some shut-eye in here when I can." She rubbed her face. "Mom's just as mad at me as Sam is, but she can't push herself over without help. And Sam — I try not to think about it, coming here. I bet she'll figure it out soon, though. Or I'll slip up."

His anger flared, but then it had never been too far out of reach recently. "What've they got to be mad about?"

"Oh, you know, the usual. Shirking my responsibilities, trying to give away tribe secrets, being a general pain in the ass . . ." Jules smirked, though it lacked any humour. It was more bitter, resentful. Unhappy.

And it was doing nothing for his temper. He shook his head. "You've got to sleep, Jules."

"I try," she said miserably, "but when Sam finally lets me off for a few hours, my mom makes me follow her around to Council meetings and whatever else she can think of. Reckons she's going to change my mind, or something."

Everything she said was just inviting more questions, telling him more things that he had missed out on and knew nothing about. Had only a week passed? "About what?"

Julie looked up at him, leaning back in her chair. She was silent for a long moment while her tired brown eyes searched for something, dragging over every inch of his face before she took a breath. "Why are you here?" she asked instead of answering.

Answers like _I haven't seen you for a week_ and _I missed you_ built up in his throat, but he couldn't voice them. Instead he nodded down towards the box underneath his arm and said, as nonchalant as possible, "Got something for you."

"What is it?"

He suddenly felt embarrassed, but braved it and offered the box to her. It had been a good idea at the time, when he'd escaped the house a few days ago and had driven for miles and miles, thinking and thinking, but now he wondered if he'd done the right thing. If she'd accept it. Jules had never been one for charity.

She reached out for it and gave it a gentle shake. It wasn't heavy, or particularly big, but when she heard something distinctively metal inside of it a smile like no other broke out on her face. "What is it?"

Lee shuffled on his feet, mumbling through his embarrassment, words garbled.

"What?"

Damn him if his cheeks were red. What the hell was wrong with him? He cleared his throat. "Just — something. It's not — it's not a big deal."

She raised an eyebrow, but her curiosity eventually won out and she tore off the tape, ripping half of the cardboard with it. It fell to the floor as she froze, staring at what she'd found, mouth opening and closing in her disbelief. Or, what he hoped was disbelief — because he wasn't sure what he'd do if she was upset that he'd gone ahead and bought it without her.

"Lee . . ."

"It's not a big deal," he said again, quickly. "You found it. I just went and got it."

She nodded slowly, eyes transfixed on the master cylinder she'd been hunting for her Rabbit for months now. The same one she'd been pestering him for a ride up to Port Angeles so they could go and check it out over the weekend.

He shrugged his shoulders. It _wasn't_ a big deal. It was not. "We were gonna go anyway, right?"

Julie looked back up at him, and he felt his stomach clench when he saw that her eyes were lined with silver. She swallowed thickly, hands shaking as they ghosted over the metal before her. He knew what it meant to her. He'd wanted to do it, knowing that she wouldn't be able. Thinking that Sam might not have let her.

"I'll — I'll pay you back. Every cent. I promise."

Lee shrugged again. "If it makes you feel better. Or if you really want to give me something then you could just — you know, not disappear on me again or anything. Mono was a pretty poor excuse, you know. The idea that you were on drugs was more convincing."

Julie laughed, but the sound was choked like a sob had escaped her instead and she hid her face, busying herself by trying to put the top of the box back together. Carefully, like she wanted to protect what was inside. "I can't believe you remembered."

"You only mentioned it, like — oh, I don't know—" He rolled his eyes with feigned exasperation. " _Every day_. How could I forget?"

"I did," she whispered, her tears finally spilling over without abandon. "I forgot. I made myself, because I didn't . . ." She looked up at him, clutching the box tightly. "Thank you."

He nodded, voice failing him as she sniffed loudly and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"S'pose I'll never sleep now," she said with a shaky laugh, "not 'til this is in." But he didn't laugh with her, and her forced grin turned desperately sad. It was quiet for a long moment as they looked at each other. Her face fell. "Lee, it's not — it's not a goodbye present, is it?"

"What? No! Geez, Jules. It's not a . . . _No._ Fuck."

She blinked the last of her tears away. "It's not?"

"No. It's not. Is that what you really thought?"

"I thought . . ." Julie stared at him as if she might find the answer she wanted without having to force herself to ask for it. She seemed as reluctant as he did to acknowledge what had so far been left unsaid.

He said it anyway. "I figured it out, Jules."

If she was surprised, she didn't show it except for the deep, steadying breath she took. She closed her eyes. "And?"

"And what?"

"And," she said, bracing herself with a huge breath, "what do you think?"

Lee willed himself to remain upright. He didn't know what he thought, how he felt — not even now, not after four whole days. The whole thing was so unbelievable that he'd stared at the journal he'd stolen for hours and hours, had read it front to back three times over before his mind started working again and been capable of coherent thought.

The last year of his life had suddenly come together, just like that, and he was still reeling. Everything he had suffered with Sam, the secrets, the lies . . . He knew, deep down, that it was all true, and yet he couldn't wrap his head around it. That it had happened to Sam, and then Julie. That it was real.

_You've been hearing it all your life._

"I haven't told anyone," he managed to say eventually.

"I don't care about that," Julie scoffed. "I care about — well, you know." He didn't. "Is it . . . Are things going to be weird now?"

"Because you turn into a great big dog or because—"

"A wolf."

"Dog," he insisted, trying not to stutter against the revelation which had finally been said aloud. He'd known, of course, but hearing it . . . "If I think about fluffy Labradors then it doesn't seem so bad."

"Fine, a dog," she allowed, laughing breathlessly. It was a nervous sound, but even though she looked slightly worried they smiled at each other and something eased in his chest to the point it was no longer painful. He might have not been able to say it, but he had missed her.

Julie got to her feet and placed the master cylinder atop her workbench. When she faced him again with clearer eyes he still had the thought that she was apprehensive, that she was still being careful — like she thought he might start yelling at any minute, might run away screaming.

He did neither. "You really scared the shit out of me, kid."

And then she was crying again, her face crumpling awfully as she flew forward and sagged against his chest, her hands twisting in his shirt. She couldn't speak, not as her body was wracked by violent sobs.

But her tears no longer scared Lee. He had dealt with the worst of them, had long learned that for all Julie was like Adam — who was tenacious and passionate, fiery and _strong_ — she was also like Aaron: sensitive and soft in all the right places, intense and _gentle_.

Adam faced things head-on, always. He wore his heart on his sleeve, come what may. But Aaron didn't fly so easily off the handle like his twin; he bottled things up until he couldn't take it anymore; he crashed and burned under the weight of it. And that was Julie now. She had dropped that final defence, and it would be a long, long time before she calmed.

So Leland did the only thing he could. He'd done it before. He wrapped his arms around his best friend — his _only_ friend in all ways that counted, that truly mattered in spite of who she was, _what_ she was — and he held her tight.


	16. xvi

_xvi._

_show me that dreamer i love / let me see the fire in your eyes_   
_keane, "i'm not leaving"_

* * *

**(Julie)**

She couldn't stop crying as the full weight of missing Lee crashed into her, of feeling so alone this past week whilst her life had changed so drastically around her without him to share it with. And now he was here, he knew — _he_ _knew_ , and he didn't care. Finally he was here.

Lee pulled back, just enough that she could see the concern etched into his face as he looked down at her. But at least he looked better — tired and worn, just as she knew she did, too, but better; his skin was now peppered with splotches of sickly green marks instead of the dark purple she'd last seen, his eyes less swollen. Healing, finally.

He brushed the short strands of her hair back from her forehead, a frown creasing his own as whatever he wanted to say couldn't quite make it past his lips.

She didn't give him the chance. She closed the distance between them, burying her face into his chest again, and it was a full minute before she was the first who found the strength to speak. Her throat burned as she gulped and fought to come back to her senses, feeling like a dam had been cracked open inside of her. "I hate it. I hate this."

Before she could say more, he was lifting her up and carrying her with complete ease to the same chair he had claimed for himself all those months ago. It seemed pathetic, now that she'd thought of it, but she'd not wanted to sleep anywhere else — although there was something to be said in that she was insanely more comfortable as he sat upon it and she curled up awkwardly on his lap. It was as if he couldn't feel her weight at all. Like she hadn't just spurted four inches and gained ten pounds of pure muscle.

They were silent for a long, long time. She was inherently grateful that he didn't try and promise everything would be alright or try and convince her nothing was as bad as it seemed. He didn't mock or patronise or judge her. He simply held her until the worst of it passed.

Julie exhaled, long and slow, melting into his sure touch. "How did you figure it out?"

He told her about the book, about sitting on the couch with Sarah who had laughed about the legends. He'd stolen his mom's journal later that night, had shut himself away in his bedroom and he'd read every single page with Julie's words ringing through his head. And he'd known, then, that his mom's crazy superstitions were not so crazy after all.

But there was a lot he didn't understand still.

"You said that . . . _Sam_. . ." The name was ripped out of him, and his fingers pressed against Julie's bared hip from the effort it took. But, she thought, not because he was still so cut up about Sam, but because he was mad at her. "You said that she was the reason you couldn't say anything."

Julie knew they were both remembering her struggle in his bedroom. He must have thought that she was choking.

"Orders," she mumbled against his neck, thoroughly exhausted. It was a relief that she could talk without that happening now, even if Lee might have not liked what she had to say. "She's the Alpha. If she wants us to do something — or _not_ do something — then we don't really have a choice. What she says goes."

"Well that's bullshit," he spat angrily, his automatic reaction whenever Sam was the topic of conversation. Sounds like that flew from him so easily at the mention of her. "Who let her be in charge?"

"First come first served, I guess," Julie replied, aware of the evasiveness in her tone. She hoped that there hadn't been anything about bloodlines in the book — a book Bonnie carried with her too, every word of it identical. All the Elders had one: Bonnie, Mrs. Clearwater, Mrs. Ateara . . . Julie would probably steal if herself and read i sometime soon, but she'd been so wrapped up in refusing her mom's insistence to take more of an interest in her birthright . . .

Lee huffed. His arms were still tight around her, and her body burned against him. They had never been so close, so wrapped around one another.

"Could you do it?" he asked, because of course it didn't matter if things like that were in the book; Lee still understood. He knew. He always did. "Be in charge. I mean, Bonnie's the Chief. Surely that means something, you being her kid."

Julie nodded bleakly, but said nothing.

"You don't want to."

"This is going to be my whole life," she mumbled after a long pause, her voice sounding hollow. "It's already hard not to refuse her. I can, if I really want. I have, because she's not _supposed_ to be in charge. But if I take over from her then I'll have nothing else left." His hold on her became impossibly tighter at that. "I don't want to be Alpha. I don't want any of this."

"And now she's mad at you. Because you don't."

"They all want me to take it. I _should_ have taken it when I . . . when it happened. I think they think I'm just being purposefully difficult."

"You? Difficult?"

"Shut up," she muttered petulantly.

Leland chuckled, the movement jostling her against his chest. But Julie didn't care, instead feeling a small smile breaking out. That he could still laugh, that he wasn't repulsed by her and still wanted to be her friend, was enough to keep that smile on her face as they lapsed into comfortable silence again.

She listened to his breathing, his heart, the sounds outside of the garage around them, her keen ears picking up on even her mother opening and closing the refrigerator inside of the house. She had gotten used to it — the hearing — but it was still an effort to drown out the background noise. Emma still had trouble with it. There was so much going on, all the time, so much more than the naked eye could see. It was even worse when there were four other voices inside of her head.

Lee tipped his head back, sighing deeply. "This is so fucked up," he said eventually, his voice almost as weary and defeated as she felt. Exhaustion coated her very bones. It wasn't long before she had to run again, still on double patrols. Not that anything ever happened.

If double patrols had been her punishment for trying to bring Lee into the secret, Julie had no idea what was in store for her now that he did know. It wouldn't matter that he had figured it out himself with the rubbish clues, the vaguest hints she had been able to leave him with. It would still be her fault. And yet . . . whatever Sam would throw at her, Julie would take it. Gladly. No matter the price for having Lee back, she would pay it.

"I believe it," he said then, "I'm just not sure I want to. It's so . . . so . . ."

"Unbelievable," Julie finished for him. "I know."

He nodded. "That book, it said that it only happens when, you know . . . _vampires—_ " he scoffed "—are near. Cold Ones."

The question was evident. _Who?_

"They're called the Cullens. The leader, it—"

"Wait," Lee blurted, sudden realisation dawning on him. Jules tried not to squirm uncomfortably, tried to keep herself in place within his arms. "Charlie's kid — he was going out with one of them. I remember my mom saying. _You_ said it, once."

She felt tears pricking at her eyes once more. "I know."

There was a dead silence, and then, "They killed Beau?" he asked incredulously, voice pitching.

"No. They . . . Beau — he was . . ." Julie blinked her tears away, fighting the rising sickness which had plagued her since she'd found out. And when Lee's hands slipped slightly — perhaps whilst he had another revelation — Julie eased herself out of his grip and got to her feet. She couldn't bear it any longer, being so close, feeling his . . . _indignance_ about it all, knowing that it was all on her behalf. Lee might have been closer in age with Beau than he was with her, but he'd not known him. He'd never spent any significant time with him like she had when they were kids. Hell, he hadn't even gone to the funeral.

"He was what, Julie."

She looked at the Rabbit. "Not was. _Is._ He's one of them, Lee."

Lee sputtered behind her. "They — they _made_ —"

"No," she said again. "At least, they said they didn't. Not technically, I guess." The whole agreement her mom had made was based on a fucking technicality. "It was another one who did it."

Lee was on his feet now, too, his hand on her shoulder and pulling her back. His voice continued rising with every word. " _They_ said?"

Jules closed her eyes just so that she didn't have to look at him, concentrating on her breathing. She had a great deal more control than her sisters, thanks to Jade putting her through her paces night after night, though maintaining it was a constant thing.

"After the funeral," she began quietly, "the same day that I locked myself in here and . . . well, you know. Sam sought them out. She only had Jade and Paula with her then, and they were outnumbered. They wanted to fight, but they couldn't. They would have lost. Badly."

Lee scoffed again, as if to say, _So what,_ but it lacked the same heat. Because despite himself, Julie knew that he still cared. He hated Sam, hated Paula, but he wasn't evil enough to wish them both dead. Not like she was, wishing the same thing on Beau.

"So they tried to drive them out," Julie continued, remembering what had happened as if she had been there herself. She'd relived the memory enough. "The Council — my mom, she decided it after she saw them at the funeral. Except the bloodsuckers . . . They had this story, so she went to meet them with the pack. And she saw him. Beau. She saw Beau and . . . _she let them off._ " The words were a growl.

It faded by the time Lee spoke again. "Please don't tell me they're still here."

"They said they'd be gone after a year."

Lee kicked the garden chair. It topped over noisily on its rusted side as he began stalking the length of the garage, back and forth and over again, his strides long. His hulking frame seemed to overshadow the whole space entirely, making even her clutter of tools and oil cans seem small. It seemed as if he'd done some growing of his own, filling out in all the right places.

Not that he hadn't been worth looking at before.

"Have _you_ seen him?"

"No," she said, surprising herself at even how calm she had turned. Lee's anger had had a strange effect on her, like he was mad enough for the both of them and she was the one who had to keep her head to stop him from doing something stupid. "I'd probably kill him."

"Good."

"It'd break the treaty."

"They broke it first," he argued, still pacing wildly. "I can't believe they . . . And you—" His voice cracked. "You thought he was _dead_. You thought that you — and your mom _let_ you . . ."

Suddenly, Jules understood his anger. It warmed her slightly in spite of herself, knowing where exactly his rage had been born from. And in a strange, sick way, it pleased her. They were the same, thought the same. It was as if nobody else cared about the finer details, but he did.

"I know," she said. She picked up the chair from the floor and straightened it out. "Sit down, Lee."

He whirled round, although something about him relented after he faced her. Still, it was with some reluctance that he sat, elbows propped against his thighs as he bent his head and tugged at his hair.

Julie crouched in front of him, crossing her arms over his knees. "Your temper's almost as bad as mine," she joked weakly. "I thought you were going to start sprouting fur for a second there."

"I wish I could," he muttered. "I _want_ to. What they've done to you —"

"No, you don't," she said quietly, wrapping her fingers around his wrists and coaxing them out of his hair. "You'd have to be inside of Sam's head, then."

Lee stilled. "What do you mean?"

"I think that book of your mom's left a lot out."

"It just had the stories. Histories, I guess. What happened and why it happened. Not . . . What do you mean," he said again, " _inside her head_?"

Julie sat back and rallied the last of her strength. She'd be so, so drained when she had to phase again, inhuman strength and resilience be damned . . . but she could do this.

"I don't have a lot of time. I have patrol—"

"Patrol?"

Julie felt the side of her lip twitch in slight amusement. "If you interrupt—"

"I won't."

She raised an eyebrow, and colour tinted Lee's cheeks. He dutifully closed his mouth, straightened his back to attention upon the chair, and mimed zipping his lips closed.

It was an effort not to laugh, and she squashed the urge with a deep breath. She would have suggested that they walk down to the beach, because she was bound to be late for her next double shift and the thought of someone — _Sam_ — coming to look for her here, the one safe place she had . . . But wherever she told Lee everything he wanted, needed to know, no place would make it easier to hear.

She started small. She told him about the pack. How Sam had been the first, followed by Jade and Paula and Emma. And to his credit, Lee kept his silence throughout. Julie tried to skip over Sam's story as much as she could; she couldn't bring herself to tell _that_ part of the story. Not yet. Not ever.

She told him about what the pack could do, how they'd been thrown together and now relied upon each other. How she relied on Paula, even though she still hated the bitch for what she'd done. She told him about the bloodsuckers and how she wanted to tear them limb from limb but was bound by the treaty to leave untouched. How their very presence had created the largest pack the tribe had seen for centuries, that they'd probably be the biggest pack in history once Quil joined them — along with whoever else might be affected. Whoever else had the right gene.

"Sarah," he said twenty minutes later, his voice hoarse.

"Yes. But she's young," Julie tried to tell him convincingly. "Well, younger. Emma and I are the youngest, but Sam, Jade, Paula — they're your age. Older, even."

"Will she . . . ?"

"No," she told him firmly. She believed that much. Hoped for that much. "And by the time she's old enough, they'll have left."

Lee's shoulders dropped in what Julie knew was relief, and he nodded. "And Quil?"

"Soon." Julie fidgeted on the floor. "Sam said yesterday that she can feel it, now, like she felt it before each one of us joined the pack. I've been . . . well, not avoiding her, because Sam's had me running flat out ever since I tried to tell you. But I haven't seen her."

"And she has no idea what's about to happen to her."

Julie couldn't give him an answer. It was hard enough being ordered to keep him in the dark, but Quil — who deserved to know more than anyone else, who probably felt as if she had been left behind — was surely going to hate them all for it. Because Julie did. She hated them all for prizing the secret above their daughters and their friends.

She leaned against Lee's legs, head tipping against his knees.

"Can't you tell her?"

"No. And you can't, either. What if she gets mad and she phases? What if she's too close to you and you get hurt?"

"Jules—"

"No, Lee." She pulled back to look up at him staring down at her. He had the Look on his face — the one that said nobody and nothing could stop him, that if he wanted to tell Quil then he was going to do just that. And Julie had only one thing in her arsenal to stop him.

"That's how Elliott got hurt. Sam got too close, too angry, and . . . She hurt him, Lee. She didn't mean to, but that — that's what happens. What _can_ happen."

Lee blanched. "It wasn't a bear."

"No," she said, half expecting him to pull away from her, to push his chair back and give her a wide berth. "It wasn't a bear."

Julie got to her feet before she could be struck with the pain of him moving away first. Making the decision for him. She was the one who paced along the garage floor now, less furiously than Lee had but suddenly restless all the same, agitated and worried. Rejection from Lee had been what she'd been scared of all along.

But there were more frightening things, she knew — like the way Lee had fallen silent, the way he averted his eyes and absently picked at one of his nails.

"They're getting married," Lee said eventually, the words falling flat. Julie wasn't surprised that the news had spread across the reservation by now and he'd heard. She only wished that she had been with him when he had. "Aren't they?"

Such dangerous territory they were in. "Yes."

"She did that and he still asked her."

Julie didn't think it would help by telling Lee that it had actually been Sam who had asked Elliott. She didn't think it would help telling him anything — not about Sam and Elliott, not about the real reasons why Sam had committed to a lifetime of making Elliott happy despite the guilt that would never leave her.

Still, she couldn't help but ask, "Does it still hurt you?"

Lee looked up and Julie halted her pacing. He seemed to consider his answer for a moment, struggling with something. Then he shrugged. "Sometimes, I guess." He sighed. "When do you have to leave?"

"Do you want me to?"

Despite the hurt which was working its way in, Julie could have sworn her knees wobbled slightly in her relief that he'd changed the conversation. Explaining imprints, lifelong commitments and things like fate and destiny . . . She still couldn't bring herself to tell him that part. Maybe she would never be able to, because hurting him like that, _breaking_ him like that was something she could not do.

"Not really," Lee admitted. "Sorry, I didn't mean it that way. All of this, it's just . . ."

"A lot to take in?"

"Something like that, kid."

Julie smiled. She would never admit it to him, but she kind of liked it when he called her that. Too much. More than she should. It never sounded patronising coming from him, not like when Mrs. Ateara called her _child_. It sounded like . . . an endearment, almost. Like when _honey_ slipped from her own mouth.

He didn't call Emma or Quil _kid_.

But she tried her damnedest not to think about things like that, because her liking it as something of her own and wanting him to say it more (to her, only to her) was exactly the kind of trouble Lee didn't want. Them, being here together, how close they had been . . . it was nothing to him. Just comfort between friends, between family. And — well, she knew how he felt about the age thing.

Not that it mattered to her. What were three or four measly years, after all? There had been three years between her mother and father, five between Uncle Caleb and Aunt Erin.

They'd never spoken about it beyond that conversation after Paula had punched him. Of course, it had been about their friendship, never anything more. Still, it had hurt Julie to suggest there wasn't anything more between them. To lie. At least on her part, about how she really felt.

And Lee was none the wiser. About everything. He seemed wholly unaware of every time he brushed her hair back, draped his reassuring arm over her shoulders, held her hand — because that was how he spoke, especially when words failed him. He communicated with expressions, movement; he explained things by showing, not telling. He showed his affection by hugging and his contempt by hitting or kicking whatever was in sight.

He had absolutely no idea what it did to her.

Until she had the courage to tell him, he never would.

Julie stood. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

She waved a hand. "I'm alright. I'm glad that you know. It's been . . . Well, this week has really sucked, y'know?" He nodded. "But I really do think it's better if I go now. I'm pretty sure I'm late, anyway, and I don't want them to come looking for me here.

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right." He pulled a face. "Especially if it's Paula."

"Don't worry. I've been giving her hell. Elliott, too." Jules held out her hand and helped pull him to his feet, even though he didn't need the help. Still, he took her fingers and hoisted himself up. "You really did a number on his face, by the way." She'd been dying to tell him that. "Almost as bad as Paula did on yours."

He snorted, looking smug, and squeezed her hand gently. "If I hurt him as much as my nose hurt then I'm not sorry."

"You wouldn't be sorry either way," Julie laughed, opening the garage door. Sunlight poured in.

She carried Lee's answering grin away with her.


	17. xvii

_xvii._

_i'm under water, and i'm on fire / there's nothing wilder than my heart_   
_daughtry, "deep end"_

* * *

**(Julie)**

By noon a summer storm had arrived, and the pounding rain it brought accompanied the soundtrack of Paula's pacing as she, Emma and Julie waited for the rest of the pack to fall in.

They were soaked to the bone, the three of them, but they didn't feel the cold — not even as close to the clouds as they were, in a clearing where the wind whipped viciously at their fur and the rain pelted them from slashing angles. (Julie found it rather refreshing, in all honesty; the storm had cleared her head like nothing else, had helped steel her for the world of trouble she knew to be coming her way after spending all morning spilling the pack's secrets to Leland.

If Paula was this mad about it — madder than she usually was, anyway — then Sam was only going to be ten times worse.)

The clearing where they'd positioned themselves was nothing more than a stretch of wasteland; it had long since been left to rot after being turned over and abandoned by loggers, but wedged between two spurs of the mountains as it was had made it the perfect spot for a pack of their size to go undetected by the Rangers who hunted them. It was also far enough from the reservation that, if Julie decided that she wanted to kill Paula, she knew nobody would see. They wouldn't even hear a scream — not over the storm, not even if they were gifted with the keen ears of a wolf.

Nobody except Emma, anyway. And the girl was so unfailingly loyal that Julie knew with absolute certainty that she would help bury the body with no questions asked.

Emma nudged her right flank in quiet affirmation, and Julie nudged her back — as good as a pinky promise, in their book, helped by the fact Emma was happier now that she did not have to keep secrets any longer. She would promise mostly anything to keep their friendship intact, and she planned to extend the same treatment to Quil (when she joined them) as some sort of retribution for ditching them both.

Although Emma missed Quil, her happiness at being reunited with Julie was not even dampened by Paula. The silver wolf continued to pointedly ignore them as she scratched at the mud underneath the weight of their steely gazes, her claws dragging deep.

Paula hadn't argued as Emma had taken up the Second's position (although it didn't seem to matter how many times Julie had told her to stop falling into formation behind her, how many times she had told _all_ of her sisters — they still did it regardless), because Paula was quite certain that Julie was going to be dead soon anyway, and any protests about Emma assuming the most coveted rank were considered wasted headspace. Paula's anticipation about the very probable bloodbath around the corner outweighed even her anger about why it was going to happen.

Anger which usually blinded her in a fight. A fight Julie would win, as she had done so many times already.

Paula's ears whipped the rain as they flicked in response to the thought that reached her, and she flashed her teeth. _Bring it._

Emma's growl was as long and low as the rolling thunder. She had taken her new (albeit temporary) role to heart, and her unwavering devotion and protectiveness rolled off her in waves. She saw Paula's attitude as an insult. Emma had always been steadfast, had always loved Julie the most, but it was as if those natural instincts had been amplified. And it was stifling.

Honestly. Like Julie needed any more reasons to refuse taking over. She let loose her sigh.

_Leave it, Em. I wouldn't want to rob her of the chance to watch Sam kill me._

_Yeah, leave it, Em,_ Paula thought tauntingly. _Save your strength to protect her when everyone finds out what she's done._

Emma crouched low, her stare fixed Paula still — who merely resumed her circling, baldly dismissing the challenge.

 _You're funny,_ she snorted. _Where'dya think I should sit, Jules? I want to get the best view in the house for your last minute on this earth._

Emma tensed. _Shut your mouth, Paula._

 _Both of you shut your mouths,_ Julie snapped.

Paula cocked her head. _Is that an order?_ And when Julie gave her no answer, her tongue lolled. _I thought not._

 _Jules, you don't need to fight Sam about this,_ Emma began, still eyeing Paula warily. Distrustfully. _She'll understand, she will. I mean, she'll be mad first, yeah, but I won't let her—_

_I'm not going to fight her._

Paula sucked in a breath through her teeth, practically gleeful. _You moved in on her ex-boyfriend, told him **everything** , and you're going to just take it lying down? **Sweet**._

 _I haven't forgotten how you love a fair fight,_ Julie bit out sarcastically. She got to her feet and shook out her wet fur. _And I didn't tell him everything._

 _Oh, come on!_ Paula shot back. _Are we still on that? Leland deserved what he got. He could have punched me back but—_

_It would have been like punching a brick wall._

_—but he didn't, that's his fault! Just because I'm a girl doesn't make a difference!_ Paula carried on. The whole pack knew how she had wished he'd hit her back, even if it was only so that she would be within her rights to hit him again. She hated him that much.

Well, the feeling was mutual.

A familiar fire began burning at the base of Julie's spin. She embraced it. _You called him a pervert._

Paula saw the challenge. _I didn't. I might have **insinuated** —_

Julie lunged.

And Emma, loyal to a complete fault, howled a battle cry over the raging storm before she followed.

The three wolves converged on another at breakneck speed, all beyond capability of coherent thought as they snapped and snarled and surrendered themselves to their beast. They were barely able to tell each other apart with how dark their fur had turned. But Julie knew Paula — knew that scent. Knew that confidence which frequently bled into arrogance.

As Emma dug her claws into Paula's hide, Julie aimed for her throat. But Paula got her feet between them and _kicked_ , sending Emma barrelling into an unstable stack of logs which were longer than any of their bodies.

Julie did not pause to look. She had felt the bruise — nothing more — and knew already that Emma had scrambled away from the tumbling log seconds before they had a chance of crushing her.

A second of advantage, that's what Emma had given her. And Julie grabbed it, lunging again for the throat, her massive body pinning Paula. Paula may have been one of the best fighters in the pack, helped only by her tendency to seek such violence — she'd had plenty of practice — but Julie was the strongest. She had bested Paula before.

Her jaw closed—

 ** _STOP!_** Sam's howl rang out in the distance, far enough away that she had to rely on an Alpha-order to stop Julie from making that final blow. _Let her go, Julie!_ And then, so furiously that Julie knew she would gag if she resisted, Sam howled again. _Get off her!_

She wanted to protest that she'd been winning — again — but, with no other choice, she was forced to push herself away, the order locking itself around her. But not without digging her claws into Paula first.

The silver wolf yelped, tossing and slipping in the thick mud as she attempted pitifully to scrabble to her feet. _You **bitch** —_

Sam's howl rang out for a third time, closer now, before Julie had chance to prepare herself for Paula to spring. She knew exactly what move she was going to make . . .

_Stand down, Paula!_

Paula collapsed in on herself, panting underneath the weight of the Alpha-order, and it was through her eyes that Julie watched her russet shape trot away. Her wet tail was high, swishing victoriously in the air before she pounced over one of the fallen, rogue logs like a lithe cat. She didn't have so much as a scratch on her.

Paula snarled. _Bitch_ , she spat again.

 _I know,_ Julie replied easily, butting heads affectionately with Emma before dropping down beside her sister. Together they ignored Paula as the girl continued to rage behind them, outraged that _she_ was the one trapped by Sam's restraints.

Julie knew exactly why Emma had howled before following her — to attract Sam's attention, to stop her from killing Paula . . . probably — but still she said, _Thanks._

Aware of their audience, Emma only allowed herself to huff as Sam and Jade burst into the clearing.

Alpha and Second instantly rounded on themselves, Jade racing straight to Paula's side. Sam, however . . .

 _You!_ she barked. _I am sick of you!_

Julie petulantly flicked her tail. It beat noisily against the ground. _She started it._

 _I don't care who started it!_ Sam roared, ignoring Emma as the grey, black-spotted wolf attempted to replay exactly what had happened, what words had been exchanged. _You should know better!_

 _Why?_ Julie challenged, baring her teeth as she rose to her full height. _Let me guess._ _Because I'm supposed to be in charge?_

_You're not fit to lead us!_

_Good thing I don't **want** to lead then, isn't it? _she shot back. She was exactly the same height as Sam, when they faced off like this. She could see her reflection in the black wolf's eyes, they were that close. Nose to nose.

They stared at each other for an immeasurable amount of time, spitting and snarling and snapping their jaws, until finally — finally, Julie looked away. She always looked away first.

The pack released a breath Julie hadn't been aware they'd been holding. But she could see it now, that they had thought it might finally have happened. The fight for dominance. Who did they really wish took point? Sam, or her?

Sam growled deeply before anyone could entertain that particular thought. Emma, especially. Because if Emma took Julie's side, as they all knew she would, and Quil joined them . . .

_Go and cool off. I don't want to see you again for the rest of the day._

Julie bowed low, theatrically sweeping a paw out from underneath her. _Your will is mine, Alpha._

The pack flinched. They all understood the insult. Did not, had never dared to do such things themselves.

Sam snarled, threatening all she could do — _would_ do within that very sound. _Get out of my sight._

Julie snorted and stalked away. But as she passed she ensured to look down at Paula, still pinned by an invisible force upon the ground.

_Next time, I won't hesitate._

_Next time, bitch,_ Paula snarled to the back of Julie's russet wolf as it prowled away, _you won't have the chance._

Julie snorted again as she put on a burst of speed and left the clearing, kicking up mud behind her without so much as backward glance.

She phased as soon as her sisters were out of earshot, bending down and grabbing for the filthy and drenched clothes which hung from the leather cord around her ankle the moment bare feet appeared. She had no interest in listening to their minds; there was no doubt that Paula was going to give them all a play-by-play account of what had happened. She'd easily make herself appear the victim, not the villain, if it saved her sorry ass from one of Sam's punishments.

Punishments that were severe enough already whenever Leland Clearwater was involved. Punishment that would surely be coming Julie's own way soon enough.

But she did not care about that. Why should she? She was already running double patrols; she had already been banned from seeking Lee out. She had nothing left which Sam could take away from her. Maybe that was why she dared to push so hard, why she dared be so insolent.

But she didn't even have any shame — not about what had happened or what she had nearly been responsible for. Paula set her teeth on edge like nothing else. Add taunts about Lee into that mix . . . If Paula hadn't been saved by Sam, she wouldn't have stood a chance. Julie's rage bested even Sam's when it came to Lee.

She had been _so_ close. And whilst she wouldn't have killed Paula — maybe — she _had_ been ready to inflict enough damage that the girl might not have walked again for a very long time. Even with her rapid healing abilities.

No, Julie felt no shame. No regret. Not even for having those thoughts about her sister, as loathed as she was to call Paula such.

Julie yanked on her tank top and marched deeper into the forest.

Next time.

She'd get her next time.

* * *

The storm passed, clearing on that brisk wind which had lashed at her so viciously only an hour ago in that clearing. And, thanks to her extreme body heat, her hair and her clothes dried quickly as she inched further towards home — although she'd soon realised there was a huge tear in her tank top, exposing skin from her navel to her chest, and now it kept slipping off one of her shoulders. Another bit of clothing beyond salvaging, no thanks to losing her temper.

Man. Bonnie was going to be _pissed_.

Julie had already been forced to start wearing her brothers' old clothes — hardly anything she owned fit her anymore, save for the old sweats of her dad's which she kept buried in the bottom of her wardrobe — and she'd shredded countless shorts and shirts of theirs in these last two weeks already. At this rate, she would have to ask Bonnie to teach her how to sew. Or worse, start accepting hand-me-downs from other people.

Absolutely not. No. Maybe she could call Lee and ask him to drive her to a Goodwill or—

No, she couldn't do that either. Not with Sam's Alpha-order still preventing her from seeking him out. Julie was surprised she could even consider such things, let alone that the gag order had been broken upon him discovering the truth — that something as simple as that had even _worked._

She'd just have to work to find another loophole, wouldn't she. Add it to the ever-growing list of all the other shit in her life which she had to contend with.

The wind shifted, and Julie breathed in the chill mists and fresh rain, dragging the scent deep into her lungs. But — _there_ , in the middle of that scent, there was another. Less than half a mile away, if her inherited abilities served her right. And Julie . . .

. . . she could do naught but follow it, that sickeningly sweet scent which burned her nose, her throat.

It overpowered her the closer and closer she got to the treaty line. She hadn't realised how dangerously near she'd almost ventured, and now! Now she was walking right towards it without half a thought. Right until her toes almost grazed that line, and—

The trees didn't even rustle as the owner of that god-awful scent dropped from the sky, landing soundlessly upon the ground with a grin spread over its pale face. The vampire's feet were only a step away from hers — as if it, too, could sense that invisible line which separated them. That line it was not allowed to cross.

But Julie was allowed to cross it. She just had to ensure she crossed on two feet, not four.

She punched Beau Swan in the face.


	18. xviii

_xviii._

_i thought i lost you somewhere / but you were never really ever there at all_   
_goo goo dolls, "here is gone"_

* * *

**(Julie)**

The resulting crack echoed through the forest as Beau's head snapped to the side.

Because it _was_ Beau, underneath that changed exterior.

His eyes were a muddy orange, no longer the striking blue they had once been — almost as if they couldn't quite decide if they wanted to be red or gold. And they were shaped differently, from when she had seen them last. His features, too, had changed; they had more angles, and even his hair looked different. Shit, who was she kidding? _Everything_ about him was different _,_ just as different as she was.

No. Not like her. She had changed, too, yes. But not like this.

Even the monster _she_ had become was better than _this_.

"Woah." Beau reached up to palm his jaw as if he were able to feel pain, and the action was so human that Julie wanted to punch him again. "Guess I deserved that. Hello to you, too."

His voice was like ringing bells, the music of them inharmonious, unpleasant and grating along her eardrums. She supposed that it might have sounded differently, if she had been human herself.

But she wasn't. Not anymore, not really. She was his sworn enemy, designed to hunt him and rip him apart and _burn_ —

She must have betrayed herself within her face. Beau splayed his hands and took a step back, his muddy eyes wide and wary.

Julie followed. To hell with the treaty line. To hell with the treaty.

It was with that thought she descended into icy calm and began to stalk him.

"Jules, it's me—"

"Are you alone?" she asked in a quiet voice which she had never used before. She was in no danger of phasing, not on this side of the line; her control was endless. After all those nights of putting her through her paces, of shaping her into _this,_ Jade would have been proud. "Where's your girlfriend?"

"She's with Carine," he said, still backing away from her. "Julie, please—"

"What about the other ones?"

"I don't know. They didn't follow me. I heard the howls," he explained hurriedly. "I wanted to see if—"

Indeed, his hair was still wet, clinging to the unnatural cold of his body as if he had been waiting out the storm in the trees above. "See what?"

"You," he said.

She blinked — the only display of surprise she allowed herself to show, but she knew it didn't go unmissed by Beau. "Why."

"I remembered what Bonnie had said — about you, that you'd know about me soon enough. I didn't realise until later on what she really meant." Beau scowled unhappily, almost as if he were disappointed with himself. "When did you . . . you know . . ." He waved a hand at her, even as he continued to retreat further and further into the forest. Away from the treaty line.

Julie snorted derisively. "Phase? A few weeks ago. No thanks to you and your _beloved_ bloodsuckers."

The wind blew around them, and as her tank top rose with it she remembered that it had been ripped from the neckline and she was showing . . . Well, she was showing _enough_ that, once, Beau would have blushed.

"You — you look different," he stammered, averting his eyes. Huh. She supposed _some_ things hadn't changed, then; he was still as awkward as hell. "I mean, good different. But different."

"When I became this," she told him, "I made a promise to myself that I was going to kill you, you know. That I was going to finish the job myself, if I saw you again."

Beau's throat bobbed as he glanced over her shoulder, seeing something she could not. He half-twisted on the balls of his feet, circling her as he attempted to change the direction in which she was herding him — to take them back to the treaty line, no doubt, although Julie couldn't figure out why. She'd be free to phase there.

Maybe he wanted a fair fight.

She scoffed.

It was half a second before Beau blindly started walking backwards again, he moved that quickly. But Julie's eyes were sharp enough to have caught everything, and she didn't falter in her stride.

"You can't kill me. You'd break the treaty."

Her lip curled. "You broke it first."

"No, we didn't." Funny, how he used that plural. "Bonnie agreed that there wasn't a breach. She conceded _._ Jules, please — just stop. Let's talk about this properly."

" _I don't want to talk!"_ The scream ripped out of her. "I thought I'd _killed_ you, I _mourned_ you!"

" _You_ killed me?" Beau couldn't hide his shock in time before it morphed seamlessly into something which looked soft, and sad. "Jules, you didn't do anything. This wasn't your fault."

"But it was — I thought it was!" Julie picked up the pace and Beau — Beau, the graceful, immortal vampire, he _stumbled._ She couldn't even take satisfaction in it. "Was it me?" she demanded. "That day I ran into you on the beach, was I the one who told you who — _what_ they are?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes, it matters," she hissed. The thought that she had . . . It made her sick to her stomach, had shame settling heavily on her shoulders. Of all the people she had been able to share the closely-guarded secret with . . . It should have been Lee first. But no. She'd broken the treaty, however inadvertently, for another. "If I hadn't, you might not be one of them now!"

"My number was up the day I moved to Forks," Beau said. Pleading again, now. "It has nothing — _nothing_ to do with you. We didn't even know each other, not really."

"I'm glad," she spat viciously, "I'm glad I didn't know you. I'm _glad_ you stopped coming every summer, because then maybe I'd still be in pieces like Charlie is."

It was a low blow, she knew, but Julie was beyond anger. Even if her control hadn't been leashed so tight, she didn't think she would be able to phase if she tried. She was that furious.

Beau froze. He didn't so much as flinch when she walked straight into him, but he fell when she pushed him. She shoved him straight into a puddle almost six feet away, so disgusted with herself that her skin had touched his again. Now she was going to have to burn her clothes, as ruined as they already were.

But throwing him like that, it seemed to wake Beau up. He blinked furiously — not at her, but as if he was about to cry. _Could_ he even cry?

He sucked in a lungful of air and winced. "You saw Charlie?"

"You killed him. When you turned—" Julie stepped over Beau's body, still sprawled on the wet ground, "—when you _died,_ you killed him too."

"I know," he whispered, looking like he wished he could disappear. "I know. I didn't . . . I didn't want that for him, of course I didn't, but, Jules — I meant it when I said my number was up the day I moved to Forks. If Edythe hadn't saved me, _twice,_ then Charlie would have lost me months before Joss bit me."

Julie knew how his changing had happened. How they _said_ it had happened. She'd seen and heard everything he had told her mother and the pack through their memories.

He looked pathetic, on the floor. Some vampire he was. He couldn't even fight back.

Julie whirled away from him. "Get on your feet," she snarled.

Beau sat up but remained where he was. He shook his head. "No. Not if it means you're going to kill me."

"Get on your feet and _fight back_."

"No," he said again, defiant. "You're not a murderer, Julie."

She growled. "You don't even know me. You said it yourself."

"I know enough," Beau snapped, and damn her if it was the first spark of real fire she'd seen in him since she'd nearly fractured a knuckle on his face. "I know you believe me. Your mom believed me, too."

"My mom was wrong. She should have made you _leave_. Leave and never come back. You don't know how much — how much _damage_ you've caused, do you?"

"I know I've hurt Charlie, but I—"

"Not just Charlie. Me!" she shouted down at him. "I wouldn't be like this if it wasn't for you and your goddamn tick family! The longer you stay, the more of us there's going to be!"

He frowned. "We can't just leave, Jules, it won't look natural."

" _Fuck_ natural! Fuck _you!"_ Beau flinched, but she did not stop.

Not even as a howl sounded in the distance, miles away, deep but short-lived.

Sam.

Sam was rallying the pack and calling them to order. Julie knew, because she had been on the receiving end of that summons before. She recognised that sound for what it was.

And while her sisters might have been unable to do anything other than phase where they stood at that sound, Julie ignored it.

(Not without difficulty, but she wasn't about to show any kind of weakness in front of a vampire — no matter who that vampire was. Who that vampire had once been.)

" _That!"_ she yelled above Beau, pointing in the distance. "That is your precious Cullens' fault! They _made_ us. I'm like this because of them — because of _you_. And the more of you there are, the more wolves there will be. There will be _children_ phasing."

Beau blinked, stunned. "They didn't — we didn't know."

"Well now you do," she spat, "so I'll give you one chance. Get on your feet, and _leave_. Or I really will kill you. I don't care what that makes me. You're already—"

 _Already dead_ , she wanted to say, but she was interrupted as Sam's howl rang out across the lands once more. Julie's head turned west at the same time as Beau's, and she shivered, but her hold on herself remained firm in spite of the order laced within that spine-chilling sound.

"You have to go?" she heard Beau ask, feeling his strange-coloured eyes on her.

Julie could only stare across the treaty line and through the trees as if she could see the pack rallying without her. They were going to be absolutely livid with her when they learned where she'd been whilst ignoring Sam's call. Something only she could do, if she so wanted. Already proven, back when she had slipped under their noses to climb through Lee's window . . .

"Go," Beau sighed, standing before Julie could blink. "I think I've gotten the message. Loud and clear."

He sounded sad about it, but it was drowned out as Samantha howled a third time, desperate now, and Julie had to grapple for the tether of her restraint. Whatever was going on, whatever Sam wanted, it was serious. Sam was putting everything she had into her wordless summons.

Julie's head snapped back to Beau. "I want you gone," she told him firmly. Fiercely. "I don't care what kind of trouble it causes you and your leeches. If I see you again — _any_ of you — you're fair game. You've ruined my life, but you're not going to ruin anyone else's. Do you understand, bloodsucker? I will _burn_ you."

Beau's marble features broke. "Jules . . . For what it's worth—"

She didn't listen. She took a running leap across the treaty line, waving a dismissive hand. "See ya, Beau."

She phased before her feet hit the ground again. Scraps of her already-ruined clothes fluttered in the wind behind her, and they carried Beau's whispered farewell with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In L&D, Julie and Beau didn't have the chance to develop that same relationship as Jacob and Bella. And this girl is so, so bitter that you could call her Leah and be done with it, so I believe this was justified (and like scifiromance said on FF.net, it's the principle of these things!). Still, I'm going to run and hide now. Thank you for reviewing!


	19. xix

_xix._

_i was beginning to lose my grip / i have always held it loosely, but this time i admit i felt it really start to slip_   
_florence + the machine, "june"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

Lee had been sitting in the garage for so long that he'd lost track of time.

He'd listened to the rainstorm in its entirety, vaguely wondering at one point whether the frail aluminium roof above was going to cave in on itself, although it was only when he heard a car pulling up and craned his head around one of the massive wooden doors that he realised it had finally passed.

Outside, Charlie's cruiser was crawling at a slow pace down the dirt track leading towards the little red house. And Lee — he gripped the door with a strength that threatened to splinter it, and he prepared himself to run.

To run, and run fast, because seeing Charlie had him remembering with a painful jolt what Julie had said about the kid — Beau — and, should he find himself face-to-face with Charlie right now, Lee didn't trust he would be able to look his parents' best friend in the eye.

He hated lying. Julie knew that. She knew him so well, in fact, that she'd had to warn him off telling Quil about what was going to happen to her, seconds before the idea had even had a chance to fully form in his mind. So for Lee to pretend to Charlie that he believed the lie the man had been told . . . the lie the _world_ had been told . . .

Lee ran until his sides hurt from sprinting. Too hard, for too long. It was a shame Julie seemed set on following the treaty, if only because it meant Beau would live — to a certain degree, anyway — while his father's own life had come to a grinding halt.

Charlie would never recover. They'd all seen it, had all thought as much.

It wasn't _fair._

And his mom, Bonnie — they knew _._ Only weeks ago they'd watched basketball together and they'd sat outside together and they'd eaten spaghetti off their laps together and they'd looked their oldest friend in the eye and — and _they knew_.

Lee didn't even know how he was going to look his own mom in the eye, let alone Charlie Swan.

He was breathing hard by the time he returned home, sore and tired and beyond irritated. His head was a mess — not even running had distracted him, not like it usually did — and he was so wrapped up in himself and his thoughts, so barely aware of his surroundings that, when he fished out his keys and let himself in, he didn't notice little Sarah storming down the stairs until she was shoving at his chest.

Then he saw the anger in her eyes. The tears.

Sarah only ever cried when she was spitting mad. And even then, her anger was usually directed at someone else; she and Lee so rarely argued that when they did, he had almost forgotten by then what it was like to have a sister who shouted at him.

" _Where_ — _were_ — _you!"_

It took a second for Lee's brain to catch up with what was happening, and he blinked down at Sarah who pushed and pushed and pushed — but he felt none of her strength behind it, hardly moving against her, and a guttural noise of pure annoyance bubbled in her throat.

"You've been gone _all day!_ "

Had he really been gone that long?

"You should have been here!" Sarah went on, pushing him again. "You _knew_ what today was!"

Every word Julie had said to him that morning flew right out of his head as Lee finally came to his senses and grabbed Sarah's hands. "Stop. _Stop._ What the hell are you talking about?"

"Mom! Mom got her tests back today!" she yelled, trying to wrench herself free from his grip. "And you couldn't even be _bothered —_ no, let me go!"

And he did. Lee dropped his sister like hot coals, because it seemed that in his determination to see Julie he'd completely forgotten about his mom — about the follow-up appointment she'd been called for on that same day he'd stolen her journals and had figured out the truth.

 _Shit shit shit shit shit_ —

Lee's eyes darted towards the stairs, and he wondered with an awful sinking feeling if he was going to find his mom up there or if she was now bedbound in a hospital and awaiting surgery.

Or worse.

Lee swallowed hard, and it hurt his throat.

It was always a matter of time.

The pills were always going to stop working eventually.

And Sarah . . . Sarah wouldn't have been acting like this if the news had been positive.

"What happened?" he demanded. "Where is she?"

"She's _fine,_ " Sarah choked out, her voice pitching on a scream as her tears finally spilled over, "for _now,_ anyway _,_ not that — not that you care!" She shoved at him again, and this time he felt it. "You're so — so _selfish,_ Leland, you _knew_ you had to be here but you ran away, just like you always do!"

His sister continued to rage — something about surgery, something about money, their insurance, about things she really had no right worrying over at her young age, but Lee wasn't listening. Not really.

He stared over her head, at his mom and his dad who had appeared at the foot of the stairs.

"What the _hell_ is going on down here?"

Regardless of his father's thunderous shout, Lee almost sagged to his knees at the sight of his mom. She was pale, yes, but Holly was always pale, always looked more tired than she should, no matter how many pills she took. She'd been sick since she was a kid herself, and yet she always swore she felt fine, that she never felt any different than normal — normal for _her,_ anyway . . . but . . .

"What surgery?" he blurted over the sound of Sarah still crying. Wailing, now, her head buried in her hands as she trembled with every gasping sob. "What's wrong?"

Holly blinked. "I need a pacemaker fitted, that's all." _That's all._ "Sarah, sweetie, I know you're frightened but honestly, it's nothing unusual, it really isn't. People have this kind of surgery all the time, and—"

Saul nodded, his shoulders square. But he looked small, withdrawn. "That's right. Your Mom's going to be just fine."

"That's not the point!" Sarah cried — and Lee . . . He understood now.

His sister was _terrified_. She was thirteen-years-old and absolutely terrified of losing her mom.

Being five years older, Lee had been afforded more time to come to terms with it. His mom's heart failure. Sarah, though . . . She'd always known, yes, but she'd never been faced with something like this before. Not that she would remember, anyway. She'd only been four the last time Holly had been admitted into a hospital.

Until now, Sarah had only ever known a life of tests and medication and . . . and — if Lee knew his mom — things which Holly had probably kept from her so that Sarah wouldn't have to worry.

It was instinct to reach out for his baby sister and pull her to him. Sarah only fought it for all of one second before her anguish won out and she sagged against him.

"When?" he asked.

His mom shrugged, looking for all the world as if she were the one who wanted to be comforting Sarah. "I don't know. We're on a waiting list."

The house fell quiet, save for Sarah's sniffling as she tried to calm down. There was nothing to say. Nothing that could be said, nothing which Lee wanted to say. Not in front of his sister, anyway. Their parents had stopped keeping him in the dark about his mom's illness for a long time now. But he'd help them protect Sarah from it, if he could.

Seeing that his mom was still staring unhappily at her, Lee led Sarah over to her. He felt Saul's eyes burning into him, perhaps looking for some kind of reaction, a break like which Sarah had had. He pretended not to notice.

Sarah was gathered up quickly in Holly's arms, who frowned as she pushed the girl's hair back and felt her head.

"You don't feel so good, sweetie." His mom looked to him, concern etched into her face. "Did she feel warm to you?"

"No."

"Hm. Well, maybe it's just because you got yourself so worked up," she murmured quietly, tucking Sarah in closer.

His sister sucked in a breath, her throat still thick with tears. "I feel — I feel _awful._ "

"Okay. Bed, I think."

The look which his parents shared didn't go unmissed. But . . . _no_. Julie had said Sarah was too young; she wasn't old enough for — for _that._

When Saul put his own hand to Sarah's head, it seemed as if all the remaining colour in his face drained right out of it. He frowned disapprovingly at Lee. "She's burning up. How did you not feel that?"

"S'not his fault," Sarah mumbled, feebly lifting her head from her mom's shoulder in his defence. She glanced guiltily at him. "Sorry for hitting you."

Lee shrugged. "I'm sorry for not remembering." And he was, but he knew he was forgiven with the soft looks both Sarah and their mom gave him.

His dad, though . . . There was nothing soft there. "That's not good enough, Leland. We had to leave Sarah on her own today."

"I said I was sorry," he said, willing himself to sound far less argumentative than he felt. He'd never won a war against his dad so far, and likely wouldn't in this lifetime. "I had somewhere to . . . It was important."

"More important than this?" his dad bit back, just at the same time Sarah asked, "Where did you go?"

He stepped away and answered his sister instead, hoping that she would understand. "I was with Julie."

Lee didn't see his dad tense. But he felt it. Felt the whole atmosphere of the room change after saying those words, even as Sarah continued to sniffle in the background. And, from the look on his father's face, it was then that Lee knew for certain that Saul was in on it.

Of course he was.

"Good news. She didn't have mono after all," Lee carried on, tone dry. "But you knew that. You both knew that."

Silence.

Lee was just daring them — _daring_ them to contradict him. And they knew it.

Sarah broke first. "Lee—"

"No. Stay out of this one, Sarah. Stop defending everyone. Especially them. They've known all along what happened to her — what happened to _all_ of them, and they didn't give a shit." Lee finally looked across the room at his father, finally looked him in the eye. "Even when I was in bits over Sam, you didn't say anything."

Holly let go of Sarah. "How did you find out?"

"Did Julie break Sam's gag order, do you mean?" Lee scoffed. "No. I read your book, Mom. Anyone could have figured it out if they just looked closely enough."

"Figure what out?" Sarah asked.

Lee ignored her. "You should have told me. You should have told _us._ And — you two were thinking it just then, for crying out loud, feeling her head, and you _still_ can't bring yourselves to—"

Saul took a step towards him. "Now just a minute—"

" _No!_ You should have told me," Lee said again, shouting now. "I could have helped her!"

They all knew who he meant.

"You did help her," his mom said, hands stretched towards him. "You did, Lee. When Beau died . . . She should have phased then, or soon after — we were all expecting it. But she didn't, and that was because of you.

" _You_ did that for her, Lee," she continued. "But Julie was . . . You couldn't have stopped it entirely. One way or another, it would have always been this way eventually. Nobody could have told her what was going to happen. Nobody could have helped." Holly reached for him again, pleading with him to understand. "It has to be a secret. It's _always_ been a secret. Just because you're my son doesn't mean that—"

"Doesn't mean what?" Lee snapped, but it sounded more like a growl, a biting snarl. Inhuman. And it felt good — normal, even, to make those noises and to let it all out when he'd been holding it in. He had been so angry for so long. He felt the warmth of it in his cheeks, his stomach.

But there was another heat — and it was everywhere, burning at the ends of his fingertips and his limbs. He was on fire.

Saul wrapped an arm around Holly's shoulders. "It means some things are more important," he said clearly. Confidently. Because he did not regret what he had done. Shit, none of them regretted it! Not his dad, not his mom, not Bonnie. Lee had seen that for himself. Had seen how they all valued this above all else, as if they would rather die to protect it than their families.

Lee's chest rumbled again. "No, they're not! Nothing — _nothing_ is more important than Sarah and keeping her safe! And if telling her what _might_ happen instead of keeping her in the fucking dark on just a chance that it won't — you can't do that to Sarah," he yelled, "and you shouldn't have done it to Julie!"

Saul's face darkened. "You have absolutely _no idea_ what we'd do—"

"We _are_ keeping her safe — both of you—"

"Please," Sarah cried, tears streaming down her face again as she came to stand in the middle of them, hands splayed as if she could reach for them all, "please stop fighting. Please. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter, I don't care, please—"

But Lee couldn't stop. Not even for Sarah. He glared at his parents on the opposite side of the room, and roared, "Tell her, or I will!"

"You're out of line, Leland!" his dad roared straight back, letting go of Holly and inching forward.

"Tell me _what_!"

Lee didn't waiver. He just stared at their parents, hands balled into fists at his sides as his body shook in his anger. " _Family_ ," he said, the single word overflowing with acid. "Right."

"Stop it, Lee!" Sarah cried again. "Just _stop it!_ "

At the sound of her last cry, several things happened, seemingly all at once. The single moment felt as if it lasted forever.

Their dad yelled — a sharp, wordless shout, full of warning—

Sarah's cry twisted into an awful scream, the sound twisting as if she were being strangled, choked to within an inch of her life, before she winked right out of existence . . .

. . . just as Holly collapsed like her strings had been cut, and did not move again.

And the wolf — the _wolf_ — sprawled on the ground where Sarah had been, scrabbled to its feet and ran.

Lee watched it go — watched his sister go. And then he looked down at his mom, and erupted.


	20. xx

_xx._

_they're calling at me, come and find your kind_   
_arcade fire, "sprawl ii (mountains beyond mountains)"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

In his head there was screaming, and he knew it was his sister.

But there were others, too, just as he had been told there would be — although Leland highly doubted that Julie had told him in anticipation that he would soon become one of them. _Pack_. The idea likely hadn't even crossed her mind; she'd just wanted him to understand, relieved that she'd finally been able to share those things with him.

And, from the shock Lee could feel rolling through the pack as his thoughts touched theirs, it obviously hadn't crossed anyone else's mind either.

Slowly, as they recovered from their stunned silence, their thoughts and their feelings began filling his head. They were separate, and their . . . _individuality_ was distinguishable, tangible, and yet they were still _together_. One. One body and one consciousness which spiralled endlessly. And if it broke off, splitting into pieces, it was not long before those pieces merged again.

Lee could hardly stand it. He could hardly think of the word for what he had turned into, could hardly believe he was now one of them — one of the wolves, let alone comprehend that they could hear his every thought and see his every move.

 _He_ had become one of _them._ Impossible, and yet . . .

It meant only one thing: he had failed Sarah. For all his quiet fear that this would happen, for all his determination to _not_ let it happen — he had failed her. Failed himself. And in doing so, he'd killed his mom.

Lee ran before he could hear the absence of a heartbeat in the room. He turned his back on his father — who stood there gaping at him, thunderstruck, swaying on his feet — and turned his back on his dead mother, and he followed Sarah out of the house. He followed the carnage she had left in her wake: the broken table, the upturned chairs, the shredded carpet, the shattered glass doors leading out to the yard, and he burst out into the open with a snarl upon his lips.

Holly was dead.

He'd killed her. He'd killed his mom.

Suddenly, the screaming did not solely belong to Sarah. It belonged to him, too.

But in the far reaches of Lee's mind, he could still hear all those different voices — three of them.

One in particular was rigid with pain which he could feel but knew was not his own as their head snapped to the sky, and they howled, the sound clipped but mournful, deep and terrible. Their pain, his pain. Julie had told him so. It would always be this way, now.

That wolf's cry resonated deep within his own bones — or was it theirs? Lee couldn't tell, let alone make sense of what he was seeing or even _why_ he was seeing it, hearing it. Because this was not something which happened to the men of their tribe.

(Hadn't he said to Julie, only earlier that day, that he wished he could be one of them?

"No, you don't," she had answered, her tone as gentle as her touch. "You'd have to be inside of Sam's head, then.")

The echo of the howl died off, and Lee was immediately aware of another who had joined them.

 _What happened?_ they demanded. They — _she_ shook out her fur, shook off the Alpha's command to phase which she'd heard within the howl that still sent shivers down her spine. She thought it lucky that she had already been outside when she'd heard the call. _Is it the suckers? Have they — holy shit, that's loud!_

 _Sarah,_ the owner of the howl explained, and Lee knew that it was Sam. _That's Sarah Clearwater._ And then, with a great deal more pain, she added quietly, _Sarah and . . . and . . ._

But Sam couldn't finish her sentence. So another said it for her. _And Lee._

_That's . . . No! It's impossible! He's a **guy**!_

_I know._ Sam whined from miles away, kicking up speed as she raced towards the outskirts reservation. Sarah was getting too close to the treaty line, she thought, and she had to stop her before a war broke out.

Lee did not know where the treaty line was, but he could smell her — his sister. Could still see the destruction she'd caused from the yard and deep, deep into the trees that once towered over the fallen, shattered fence. So he continued to follow it, drowning in his own head. In everyone else's heads.

Sarah was blind with terror. Screaming still, unable to stop even as the pack struggled to think under and over and around it. They could hardly hear themselves, let alone each other or what they were feeling.

 _North_ , _Jade, north! Near the perimeter!_

_Got it._

_You're not going to stop her, you know._

_It's either we stop her or the bloodsuckers stop her, Paula._

_So? It'd shut her up._

_Don't be such an ass. Hurry up, I'm nearly there—_

_Yeah, yeah. Where's her asshole brother?_

Lee felt one of them reach for his mind and then recoil when they pried too deeply. _Not too far — he's following her._

_We have to cut her off. Herd her away from the lines._

_Where the fuck is Julie?_

_This is bullshit, Sam. As if we need any more drama and now we have—_

Sam's growl resonated through the whole forest, vicious enough that it rolled through all their chests as if it were their own and had their knees buckling underneath their weight. _Do not finish that sentence, Paula._

An order from the Alpha. Paula bristled.

Sam howled again.

There was a gentle wave amusement from one of the other wolves, weary and resigned. _She's ignoring you._

 _I know that,_ Sam snapped.

_You did tell her that you didn't want to see her face for the rest of the day._

A flash of a memory hit them all — a memory of staring at a russet wolf in the eye and willing it to back down, to submit. Sam shook it off before Lee had a chance to look any deeper. _That wasn't an order._

 _No,_ the voice agreed. Lee thought that it might have been Jade from the familiarity she spoke to Sam with, at how easily she took the brunt of the Alpha's anger. They had been friends, before all this. _But, I mean, it's Julie. If you told her to take a running jump off a cliff, she'd do it — she'd just make sure to spite you by waiting until the tide was out so she could die on impact and then let you take the blame for it._

The very idea of it had Lee stumbling, that vivid picture which entered his mind without warning, and he crashed to the ground.

But Sam, it seemed, had no argument. Unfazed, she agreed with Jade.

As Lee picked his feet up and began running again, he watched through Sam's eyes as she tipped her head back and howled a third time, throwing every ounce of iron-clad authority into it, every bit of strength she possessed that might have a chance of overcoming Julie's defiance.

Her merged with the pack's only half a minute later, and Lee found that the mental tone of it resonated on a deeper, more familiar level than the rest he'd heard. It sent his knees wobbling again; he had struggled placing the others, but he knew instantly who the voice belonged to — and would have even if he hadn't been expecting her.

 _Where's the fire?_ she demanded angrily, allowing the pack to feel the wild emotion as she threw herself into an even wilder sprint — to get away from something, and fast, but they could not see what. Julie refused to think of it. _You could have just . . ._

Then, she finally registered the screaming — Sarah's screaming — and had to fight to keep her strides steady. _Woah! What is **that**?_

 _Who is that, you mean,_ an arrogant voice drawled. There was an underlying sense of dark fury in their tone which Lee was quickly becoming used to.

Paula.

But Lee felt it, just as Paula did — hope rising above outrage. Julie's hope. _Quil?_

The pack tensed, but it was Sam who was the first to loosen a breath as she continued to track a small, sandy thirteen-year-old wolf. _No. Not Quil._

_Who?_

* * *

**(Julie)**

It was pandemonium. Pure hell.

Julie flattered her ears against her head, a futile attempt at blocking out the agonising screams filling her mind. But she could not stop herself from thinking of her cousin's lovely and round young face, of tears streaming down it weeks ago upon realisation that the two of them had lost Emma. Maybe, just maybe they were all together again — finally.

She asked the question. _Quil?_

Nobody answered. Not at first, and her first thought was to wonder if some of them had been gagged — and why Paula, of all people, was free to run her mouth.

 _No. Not Quil,_ Sam said. She may have been the Alpha who had silenced them, not even she had enough control to hide the sickness she felt swirling in her own stomach.

Julie's heart lurched. She refused to turn around and look back to see if Beau was still there, watching her, and instead tried to think _over_ the screaming, over the layers and layers of her sisters' thoughts, over the outpouring of rage and sorrow and rolling sickness which filled every empty space of the pack's single mind.

_Who?_

Sam did not answer that either; she had caught the tail end of the very thoughts which Jules had been trying to clamp down on. _What the hell did I just . . . What the fuck, Julie!_

 _Julie,_ someone whispered, tripping over their feet and then wincing with the rest of the pack when they saw who — what — Julie had spent the last few minutes with.

Julie couldn't help but think of it, now that Sam was, so she showed them everything, refusing to back down. Refusing to be sorry for what she had said — what she had done.

Silence, and then:

_You had **no** right!_

_He jumped me, I didn't exactly go looking for him, Sam!_

_Was that — was that really Charlie's kid? Beau?_

_How could you!_

_For God's sake, Julie!_

_Julie . . ._

**_Quiet_** , Sam ordered, drawing on her ironclad authority. Silence, and then, _We'll talk about this later,_ she thought, biting down on her fury. _There's no time._

Julie cast out her wordless question, silenced by the Alpha's will.

Except for one, who was too overwhelmed by Sam's knee-jerk reaction of a command and still screamed. Julie couldn't figure out who it was, couldn't make sense of their head . . .

 _Lee,_ Sam told her, and Julie's knees buckled. _Lee and_ _Sarah phased. I can't . . . I need you to go after one of them. You're the only one who can, and you know it. I can't help them both._

But Julie knew Sam already saw the choice she'd made — where she would go, who she would run after _._

Julie could feel her pain over it. Sam's pain. Pain that Lee had phased, that she had to ask for Julie's help, because to Sam it felt like a surrender in itself to the person who had refused to take over the pack for all these weeks. Who refused to help at the best of times. Who continuously refused to do the most minor of things, just because she had the right bloodline to be able to do it.

(Julie had been testing, pushing how far she could go in her refusals — if only to prove that for all she refused to be Alpha it was in her blood to choose what she did, where she went. To prove that it was her right to turn the other way, because the great-grandaughter of Ephrath Black was not born to follow a Uley.

Because Julie did not want to lead, but neither did she want to submit.)

The pack's frustration pulsed, and Sam relented. _Okay, okay, you can talk._

But Julie couldn't. She couldn't even form her thoughts into words, her mind reeling and spinning and diving in a hundred different ways as her sisters roared over one another and Lee — or was it Sarah? — screamed and screamed and screamed.

Lee. Lee had phased.

 _Julie,_ that voice whispered again. His voice.

Lee, Lee, Lee. She could feel it — feel him.

 _I'm here_ , she answered, pushing her legs harder and faster than ever as she began searching for his trail. His mind gave nothing away. _I'm here. I'm coming._

He didn't — couldn't — answer. He simply kept running. Until they all saw through his eyes as he suddenly careered along the edge of a cliff, and the pack's heart lurched as one as they realised how dangerously close he came to falling just before righting himself in time. He'd lost track of his sister, and now he was truly panicking.

Lee drew himself up short, waves crashing below him as another summer storm brewed upon them and his mind reeled. But the screaming — it wasn't him. Not anymore. He was confused and frightened and — and something else. But Julie couldn't name it, that feeling.

_Eugh. Really. Listening to Radio Jules is bad enough, but if you really think I'm listening to the both of them for the rest of my life—_

_Paula, just give it a rest for a moment would you? Just . . . stay on patrol with Emma,_ Sam thought irritably. _Jade and I will handle Sarah. We'll be back as soon as we can._

_Whatever, Sam. Don't pretend you're not thinking the same thing_ _— all of you._

Julie ignored their bickering and changed course, heading straight for where she knew her sister to be. _Emma, hold up._

_What?_

_I need your clothes._


	21. xxi

_xxi._

_you break and enter my imagination / whatever's in there, it's yours to take_   
_u2, "song for someone"_

* * *

**(Julie)**

Lee was fast. Way faster than any of her sisters.

She shouldn't have been that surprised, really. Running was what Lee did best. He could run a ring around the Rez before anyone else had stepped off the marker.

But Julie was the strongest, strongest of the pack, and she caught up with him halfway to Oregon just as the sun was beginning to set, following his prints for half a mile through the most southern part of the Olympic Forest before she was finally able to see the grey colour of his fur.

His wolf — it was massive, so much bigger than her and her sisters'. Where their limbs were wiry, their bodies lithe, Lee was pure muscle. He pushed himself onwards with an ease Julie knew he could keep up for another hundred miles, if he wanted to. And he did. He wanted to go on and on and on until he couldn't take it anymore. He wanted to escape.

And now she knew why.

At first, his mind had been nothing but a black spot in hers, swirling with what she now understood to be grief, but Sarah had finally stopped screaming — long enough for them all to see what had happened.

Lee defences slipped as he was dragged deep into the memory. Lost himself in it, forced to relive the ordeal over and over again.

He ran faster.

_Lee._

Painfully aware of their audience, he tried to shut Julie out again. Tried to shut them all out. But Julie forced her way in, picking away at that darkness he tried to haul back up over his innermost thoughts.

She lengthened her strides to match his, running so closely behind him that she could feel the whip of his tail. _Lee._

It was almost as if he couldn't hear her. Or maybe he just didn't want to. Not as Sarah showed them all, for the seventh, eighth, ninth time, exactly how her mother had fallen. Why her mother had fallen. Occasionally, there were flashes as Lee was sucked back in and was forced to remember it through his own eyes — but he quickly focused on the trees again, or the too-loud sounds of the world around him. Anything, just to stop himself from thinking too hard about what he had caused.

What he had caused. Because he blamed himself, just as Sarah blamed herself. They hated themselves, both of them.

_Lee. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault._

Darkness answered.

She was going to have to stop him soon, before he ended up bolting across the highway and into Olympia. Or worse. With the speed he was going, he'd be in Oregon before nightfall. Nevada by dawn.

The pack had tested its range once before, not too long after Emma had phased. Jade and Paula had run three hundred miles, all the way into the heart of British Columbia, and they'd still been able to hear Sam as clear as a bell.

 _Don't even think about it,_ Sam said, picking up on the thought. Of course, even whilst she did some chasing of her own, she was listening in. In front of her, Sarah was slowing down. Flagging. _Stop him, and get him home._

 _But Nevada — that's a real test,_ Julie dared reply. Maybe she could take Lee, and they could go on and on . . . Maybe they wouldn't come back.

 _Don't even think about it_ , Sam said again. Her words carried the threat of an Alpha's will this time. Not quite an order, but ready to become one. Jules brushed it off easily.

And maybe Lee was listening after all, because he put on a burst of speed which even Julie struggled to keep up with despite the added strength she'd inherited.

When she had phased for the first time, she had almost managed to throw four wolves off her as they'd fought to stop her throwing herself across the treaty line on four paws. She hadn't known then, had been too incensed to take note of their warnings. She'd just wanted to get away.

They'd stopped her, though. Eventually. She'd bled for an hour.

It'd hurt. Bad.

Julie blew a hot breath, and whispered an apology as she closed the distance between them and leapt on Lee's grey hind.

He roared and bucked wildly as her claws dug in, but she held firm, even whilst he snarled, spit flying from his muzzle as he whipped around. Because the physical pain he'd felt had that black spot in his mind cracking again.

Just a fraction.

Julie poured herself into it. She wrenched that crack open until the walls he'd erected shattered entirely, and he saw it all. The pack saw it all.

But they already knew. They had for a long time.

Lee pushed, and Julie pushed right back.

Running on First Beach, racing each other. Walking home together. Laughing as they spent hours and hours in the safety of the garage, as she tried to teach him the names of each and every one of her tools. Laughing again, when he got them wrong on purpose. Waiting for him, and then missing him.

She remembered kneeling on the bank of the river, heaving into the water after seeing him in Sam's mind — the way he'd stormed the porch, ready to go to war for her, to get her back. She remembered standing in his bedroom, relief pulsing through her veins because for all things had changed between them there was one thing that remained the same. One thing which had not been taken away from her, the only thing which had mattered.

And then . . . And then she remembered thinking that she loved the way he called her 'kid', that she loved _him_ — more than she'd loved anything or anyone in the world — and — and—

_"Are we gonna be alright, Lee?"_

_"We're gonna be fine, kid. Me and you."_

Suddenly Lee's wild bucking came to an abrupt stop.

Julie was finally thrown off from the force of it, but she was up on her feet again before his new reflexes could tell him to lunge at her in retaliation — before his purely animal instincts he had already begun submitting to took over completely and he attacked.

She lowered herself to the ground, an involuntary whine escaping her as he stared down at her with dark eyes, breathing hard.

He blinked. It was almost as if he were being pulled out of a trance, and the tremors rocking his body were near-violent as reality came crashing back down upon him.

_Julie._

Oh, thank God.

 _Yes._ She inched closer, dragging her belly over the ground.

He started moving again, but not to run this time. He looked down at his paws in absent wonder as he paced, staring at the dirt they'd kicked up and the destruction they'd caused around him. He still couldn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it.

_Lee._

He broke at his name, and the crippling emotion he felt crashed over her. Julie crawled closer towards him still.

 _Julie. Julie, I . . ._ He whimpered, finally allowing himself to feel what he had been running from. The pain from his first phase, pain from grief. _This wasn't supposed to . . . I'm not one of you. I'm not a — I'm not—_

 _A girl,_ she finished for him. _I know._

_My mom's dead, Jules. She's dead._

_I know,_ she said again, because there was nothing else to say.

He whined. _Sarah—_

 _—has someone watching out for her,_ she told him. _See for yourself. Look._

She turned her attention on the pack again, focusing on that eternal background hum of its synced consciousness and showed him how to look — to really look — through each of their eyes.

Lee recoiled at first, retreating back into the depths of his own mind. But then, as if for their benefit, one of the wolves focused on Sarah's sandy colours splayed over the ground. Her fur was long, thick and tangled, her hair as long Julie's had been when she'd phased, and it caught on something as she tried to back away. Her thoughts were incoherent; she barely registered the pain as she tried to yank herself free, barely heard the voices which tried to console her.

Julie swayed slightly, spooling back into her own body. Lee followed quickly.

He shivered. _Why?_

She knew what he meant. _I don't know. It was Quil we were waiting for, not . . . Not you._ The guilt she felt was almost as damning as his. _I'm sorry. I should have . . . This morning, you didn't feel cold. I should have realised._

Their separate recollections bled into one another as he, too, thought of sitting together in the garage. _Cold?_

_Everyone feels cold now. Everyone except us. We burn too hot._

She could tell Lee hated the use of the plurals. That he hated the audience listening in on them, holding their breath for the next snap. But Julie couldn't help wonder if they were waiting for something else, too — and if they, like her, were refusing to think of it.

Sam, particularly, had turned oddly quiet.

Julie quickly searched for that fragile, fraying tether to her Alpha — so weak, compared to Lee's — but she could not find it. Sam had phased out.

Jules searched again and found her through Jade's eyes. Human hands were untangling Sarah from the brush, consoling her, trying to calm her. Julie had the suspicion that maybe Sam had phased because she didn't want to hear any more. She didn't want to listen to whatever had to be said to bring Lee back. Didn't want to have a part in breaking him — again.

Unbidden, a thought slipped from Julie before she could stop it. _What a coward._

From almost two hundred miles away, Jade snarled. Defending not only her Alpha, but her closest friend. She was missing Kam. _Do your job, Julie._

Julie snorted and turned her back on them, tail flicking. Nobody protested.

She shook herself.

_Lee. Lee, listen to me. I know—_

_No. No. I don't want this. I . . . I killed her._ His grey form paced in a tight circle, ears flat against his head, lip curling, and Julie's heart cracked. _I killed her and it's my fault and I don't want — I can't. I'm not one of you._

They watched as Holly fell, again and again and again. Even Paula winced as she led Emma on their patrol of the eastern lines — far away from Sarah, and even farther from Lee. As much as she had scoffed at Julie's revelations, the silver wolf was keeping her silence for once, afraid of Sam's wrath if she betrayed the secret that she'd help keep from Lee for well over a year now.

By some miracle, he did not notice the direction their thoughts were inadvertently turning in — they couldn't help it; if one thought of something, they all did. But whether or not they could stop themselves, Julie would have to tell him about Elliott. About Sam. And soon.

That was, if someone else didn't slip first.

Thankfully, Jade caught on before Julie had to ask the question.

_Emma, Paula — a little privacy?_

_But patrol—_

_Do it old school. But phase back straight away if you catch a whiff of the suckers,_ Jade commanded. She thought of the pale face she'd seen in Julie's mind, wondering if the Cullens would retaliate.

Julie stiffened. _I didn't violate the treaty._ And then, more confidently, _They're not going to do anything. Not tonight._

 _I hope they do,_ Paula grumbled, and phased out. Emma followed immediately.

Jade directed her thoughts to Julie then, though all could hear — if they paid attention. _Sam's not going to phase back,_ she told her, looking at Sam standing on two feet with her arms outstretched before a trembling Sarah. _Not until he's ready._

There was faint outrage from Lee — because, unlike his sister, he _was_ paying attention — and Julie almost let her teeth show in a wolfish grin. There was something of her best friend left after all.

_I think you should phase, too. Let him see you._

_I don't—_

_Trust me. Seems to be working for Sarah. I'll stay here; I know how to keep quiet. Trust me,_ she thought again. _This helped Emma and Paula._

Julie must have been a fool. But . . . If she didn't have Emma, she knew Jade would have been the one who she'd have turned to. Relied on. For all her bossiness, all of her drilling . . . Jade was Second for a reason. She was the ice to Sam's fire. Sam, who still loved Lee enough to realise that she would be doing more harm than good by sharing his head at the moment.

Fine. Fine.

With a thought to the clothes at her ankle, Julie looked at Lee. She sighed.

Jade, however, was confident about it. She had been phasing for almost as long as Sam; she had coached three others through this. And hadn't Sam said that only she could do this?

_You're the only one who can, and you know it._

Julie blew another sigh and looked around for a tree, wide enough to hide her body. She had never been so shy about phasing before. Nudity was another unavoidable part of pack life; they'd all thought nothing of it . . . until now.

Poor Lee.

It wasn't as if he wasn't worth looking at. He just didn't think the same about a bunch of girls. Not even Sam. Not anymore.

Julie glanced at him, surprised to find him laying upon the ground. Whining and whimpering still, and shaking like hell, but he couldn't help that. Then he released a hot, shuddering breath and closed his eyes, and she knew that he'd heard what she'd been deliberating.

He wouldn't look, he thought with a hint of embarrassment, just as long as _she_ didn't when his time rolled around.

Julie was still laughing as she phased.

* * *

The outskirts of the Olympic Forest were shrouded in darkness by the time Lee fully surrendered and he ceased quivering.

It was another fifteen minutes before he allowed Julie to wind her fingers into his thick grey fur, another half hour until he settled his head onto her lap.

She tried not to cry. Tried not to let him hear the tightness in her throat. She didn't know if she'd succeeded. But if she hadn't, Lee didn't draw attention to it. He kept his eyes closed, and his breathing even, because he understood her better than anyone as she understood him.

Julie loved him for that alone.

"They told me it was almost two weeks before Emma could phase back and hold it," she told him quietly. She'd been talking about everything and nothing for just as long as it had taken him to calm down. "Paula took nine days. Jade took six. But I did it in twenty-two hours."

He huffed, his breath warm against her leg, and Julie smiled. She didn't need access to his mind to know what he'd thought. _Show off._

She ran her fingers through his fur, studying the flecks of white and brown within it. She wondered if, somewhere within Sarah's own fur, their colours would match. No pack in living memory had seen siblings before.

No pack in living memory had seen a man before. He was one of a kind.

Julie sniffed. "It won't take you as long. I know you're not happy unless you're the best at absolutely everything."

Lee raised his massive head, cracking his dark eyes open as if to say to her, _Wanna bet, kid?_

"Twenty-one hours, and I'll let you be the first to test drive the Rabbit when it's done."

He snorted, putting his head back down. Julie would have placed another wager that it translated to something like, _I'll do it in twenty._

"Nineteen hours," she said, "and you can have the spare key. To keep and everything. I'll even make Bonnie put you on the insurance."

He nudged her stomach with his wet nose.

She smiled again. "It's a deal, then."


	22. xxii

_xxii._

_in one little moment, it all implodes / this isn't everything you are_   
_snow patrol, "this isn't everything you are"_

* * *

**(Julie)**

The moonlight was gone, dawn not far off, by the time Leland slowly began to stir.

He lifted his head from her lap, his ears pricking as his eyes focused in the blue hour, and he gazed into the trees as if he could see through them, across the Olympic Forest and to the Olympic range itself, all the way to La Push.

Julie uncurled her legs and stretched them out, groaning at the stiffness that had settled in them. "What is it?"

Her voice had turned hoarse from speaking to him throughout the night. Lee had not moved until now, not once, and although his eyes had been closed she knew that he had been listening to every word of her stories and her ramblings — things which he'd likely heard before but she'd known he'd needed to hear again, if only so she could remind him that all was not lost. Things which she had needed to hear herself when she'd been in his shoes not too long ago and nobody had told her.

Lee's paws shifted beneath him, but still he stared. Stared and stared. Julie wondered if he was talking with his sister, if she too had finally calmed down enough to think in straight lines.

If her estimate was correct, it had been about eleven hours since the Clearwaters had become pack. Eleven hours, and one of them was already moving again.

Maybe he was going to beat her record of twenty-two hours after all.

Not that Julie had ever doubted him. Still, it'd be a damn-near miracle if he phased now. But not surprising. Lee loved proving other people wrong almost as much as he loved leaving them speechless, sometimes.

His legs were a little shaky as he finally stood. Then he looked down at her, holding her gaze, and Julie knew it was time to go.

"It's a long way," she told him. "You're going to have to shut your eyes again."

She couldn't help but laugh when he gave the most exaggerated eye roll she'd ever seen, huffing theatrically enough that his breath blew the hair from her face. And Julie swore that she could see the words in his lupine features as clearly as if he'd spoken them: _I'm not walking around with my eyes closed every single time you girls need to change_. _Go find a bush or something._

"Get used to it," she said. "I had to borrow Emma's clothes before coming after you, and she'll kill me if I ruin them."

Lee huffed again, impatient now as he glanced at the trees and back.

"Alright, alright. I'm coming. You gotta help me up, though; I'm sore all over." And so tired. She was so, so tired. She couldn't remember the last time she'd slept for more than four hours straight.

Julie held up an arm, and Lee snaked his huge head underneath it so that she could lean on him as he hoisted her up. _Lazy,_ he'd probably call her, but she knew he didn't mind all that much really. Not when he gently nudged her when she was finally back on her feet and didn't pull away until she was steady.

Then he closed his eyes, seeming to smirk at her before turning his nose up to the sky, and Julie felt as if she could have laughed again. Except she was too nervous all of a sudden, knowing what phasing would mean — what she was going to have to tell him before they set foot back on the reservation.

At least he was already in this form. It'd be easier to tell him this way. If he got too angry, too upset . . . Well, all she'd be in danger of was another headache. It wasn't as if he could split his skin a second time, was it?

She hoped. But she was in deep shit either way.

She had to tell him. Perhaps she should have already.

Deep, endless shit.

It was with a sigh she began to undress, taking her time to bind her borrowed clothes to the end of the leather cord around her ankle despite being able to sense Lee's growing impatience. And the familiar fire at the base of her spine seemed to take much longer than normal to spread once she'd called upon it, almost as if it knew she wanted to delay phasing for as long as possible.

She couldn't, though, and all too soon she was falling on four paws and looking at Lee. He still had his eyes closed.

 _Okay, you can look now._ She shook her fur out. _What's the hurry, anyway?_

The question was answered for him by a meek sounding mental-voice, one whose owner was quiet and unsure of themselves. Sarah. _Hi, Julie._

 _Are you coming home?_ asked another. Emma. _I want my clothes back._

 _Hello to you too,_ Julie grumbled, though it was half-hearted, and she sent a wave of gentle feeling to them both. Through Sarah's eyes, she could see Jade sitting with her in human form. Sarah's pain, like Lee's, had stopped her running. Had crippled her, emotionally and physically. _Where's everyone else?_

 _Paula crashed about midnight._ Emma made another loop around the outskirts of reservation as she began accounting for everyone. _Sam's patrolling the treaty line — you know, just in case the suckers decide to seek some payback after you went and sucker punched one of them._

Anger flared deep within Julie, the emotion heightened by an identical response from the wolf beside her. Because Lee, too, clearly felt he had a score to settle with Beau Swan.

Emma was amused by it — by them. Julie felt it more than she heard it. _I was only teasing. Jeez. You two. Anyway,_ she chirped, before it could escalate and they were all suddenly hellbent on wreaking their vengeance, _that's where everyone's at. Sam's wearing sneakers, Jules, can you believe it? Must be the first time in a year. She said she's trying to give everyone a bit of, uh . . ._

 _Space?_ Julie offered.

_Yeah, I guess._

_By 'everyone', I suppose you mean me,_ came Lee's deep tone. But he pressed his side against Julie's, heavy and warm, and she knew that he preferred it this way, that it was just them. He didn't want Sam anywhere near him — or his mind, as exposed as it was.

Sam, it seemed, had done something right for once.

_Go home and grab some shuteye, Em. I've got it covered here._

Julie could feel how Emma perked up from miles and miles away — they were all as tired as one another, all looking forward to getting their head down. Personally, Julie felt like she was ready to sleep for a week. Longer.

Emma, meanwhile, was exhausted enough that she didn't even care about having to sneak back through her window at dawn without any clothes on. She was so drained she knew she'd take her dad's yelling in silence this time, just so she could fall into bed that much sooner. _You mean it?_

_Sure, sure. We'll be fine._

It wasn't as if there was anybody with any real kind of authority around to tell them otherwise — Julie had already realised that she'd essentially been given a free pass to do this the way she wanted. The right way.

Emma's relief rolled through the pack. _Thanks, Jules._ And then she was gone.

Lee straightened at Julie's side and began walking, his strides long. He wanted to get going — to get back to Sarah and on his own two feet. _You coming or what?_

_Wait a second. I need to talk to you. Properly._

He looked over his shoulder. And waited, trying to read the thoughts crossing her mind. _What_? he asked, breaking the sudden silence which had fallen over them.

 _There's some . . . things,_ she began a little stupidly. _Stuff that happens to us which I haven't told you about yet._

Lee snorted, sounding hard and bitter even as a wolf. _Worse than this?_

She didn't answer.

_Jules?_

_Do you remember yesterday morning — when I told you about Sam, how she was the first to go through all this until Jade and Paula joined the pack?_

Leland rounded on himself and began walking back towards her. _Forgive me if I wasn't really paying attention to that bit,_ he deadpanned, _you know, what with her ruining my life, and all. It was bad enough trying to understand what had happened to you, let alone her._

Oh, God, he was going to hate her.

 _Spit it out, kid,_ he said then, nerves rising at her prolonged hesitancy.

Julie raised her head, looking him in the eye. _In that journal you read—_ (his mom's journal, but she couldn't say it) _—did it say anything about imprinting?_

She watched as Lee searched his memories, rifling through the pages he almost had memorised from how many times he'd read it, over and over. _No, don't think so. What is it?_

_That's what happened to Sam. And Jade, too — later on. It's called imprinting._

His dark eyes narrowed. _What happened to Sam?_ he asked carefully before Julie could finish her shit-awful explanation.

 _Imprinting_ , she told him again. _She imprinted on Elliott. She phased and then when she saw him, she imprinted. Sometimes it happens that way. Or sometimes . . . Sometimes it turns out to be someone you've never looked twice at before, sometimes it's someone you've known all your life . . . There's no sense to it. I don't think there is, anyway._

 _But what **is** it? _Lee growled, frustrated.

Julie could see, even in her own mind — and his, and Sarah's — that she was making little sense. She knew that she could have shown him exactly what imprinting was through the memories she shared with Sam, shared with Jade, but that felt like an intrusion somehow. Almost as if she wouldn't be doing it right, as if she would be trying to worm her way out of something. And Lee deserved more than that.

_It shows you your mate. Like . . . Love at first sight, but a little bit more powerful than that. Permanent._

The silence was awful. Even though she could see him processing, desperately trying to put her words together and desperately failing. Even though she could sense Sarah doing exactly the same thing in the back of her own head.

And then, after a long minute of holding her gaze, unblinking, unseeing, Lee said, deceptively calm, _So that's why she left me, was it?_ _All that time . . . I thought it was because . . . Why didn't you tell me?_

_At first, it was because I thought it should come from her. It wasn't my place, was it? She should have been the one to tell you. But then . . . Then I realised that even though you were finally getting over it, you still hated her. You wouldn't have wanted her to tell you. You wouldn't have given her the time of day even if she had stopped you to try._

Julie felt him about to argue the point, but he quickly drew himself up short and gave a sharp jerk of his head. Despite the rage which bled into her and his sister, Lee knew that she was right.

 _And afterwards?_ he asked.

 _Selfishness, I suppose._ Julie looked away. _Even if it had somehow become my place to tell you, even if I summoned the courage to tell you the truth and hurt you like that, I didn't want you to hate me for it._

_And now you've realised that you can't keep secrets from me. So you were forced to come clean._

Julie's eyes flew back to him, and goddamn her, her lip curled in spite of herself. _That's not fair. I didn't know any of this before I phased, Leland. Everything I tried to tell you that night I came to see you — Sam gagged me, because she damn well knew that I would spill my guts to you the first chance I had._

_You could have told me yesterday morning._

_And what would you have done if I had?_ Julie challenged. _After you'd only just found out about everything else? When I wasn't even sure if you'd want to stick around once you knew what I was?_

Lee paced as he considered it, his blood boiling now. He tried to imagine how he would have reacted. One scenario saw himself staying, wanting answers; the other saw him bolting from the garage, as furious as he was now. He imagined Julie standing at the doors, watching him go . . . Julie saw herself calling after him, crying again . . . And Lee knew what would have happened — what exactly he would have done. And he hated himself for it.

What Julie saw then surprised her. It wasn't that Sam had left him — he was over that. It wasn't that he'd lost Elliott, his friend. It was the betrayal that another friend — his best friend, Julie — had kept secrets. Secrets about people who had betrayed him, too.

 _Lee,_ Sarah begged quietly. _Don't be mad at her. Please._

He ignored her and bared his teeth at Jules, lip curling. _Why tell me at all? If you thought that — that I'd react badly. Why now?_

 _You deserved to know what you were going home to,_ Julie replied simply.

A thought occurred to him suddenly, interrupting her and paining him. _Will it happen to you?_ He blinked. **_Has_** _it happened to you?_

 _No. It hasn't happened to me. And I don't want it to. I thought I did, but . . ._ She couldn't finish, but Lee saw it. He saw it all. Remembered it all. He watched it as clearly in her mind as if they were both standing in his bedroom again.

 ** _That's_** _what you were talking about?_ He recalled her wanting him to wait to turn the light on, burying her face in her hands and laughing with pure, undiluted relief. _You said you weren't going to risk it. But you did anyway._

 _I couldn't not see you,_ she said unashamedly, repeating the words she'd said then. Lee knew how she felt now. It was up to him what he wanted to do with it, despite whether she'd initially entertained the idea of imprinting on him and—

Lee's paws halted in their wild pacing. _You **wanted** to imprint on me?_

_At first. Maybe. I thought it might have made things easier, because I . . . Well, it doesn't matter, does it? Deep down, I knew it would have been wrong if I had. And you — you would have hated it, and you would have hated me even more for forcing something like that on you._

The fight left him as he exhaled long and slow, his breath visible in the morning air. _I don't hate you, kid. Of course I don't. It's all these fucking secrets I hate. For such a long time, it's felt like **everyone's** been hiding something. My m— my mom, _he forced himself to say, stuttering over the word as pain lanced his chest, _Dad, Bonnie. Elliott and Sam before that. And then to think that you were too . . ._

That was his limit, thinking that she was part of that list. And she could see that now, more clearly than she ever had before.

_I know. I'm sorry._

His fire died. _Yeah. Yeah, I know you are. But . . . it's not your fault, though, is it? It's hers._

He blamed Sam for giving the order of secrecy. But he also blamed himself, for how he knew he would have reacted if she had told him the truth back in the garage. Blamed himself that she felt like she hadn't been able to tell him in the first place.

Julie wanted to protest, but sharing his mind — it would be like fighting a lost cause. She could see too deeply into his consciousness, and he could see too deeply into hers. No matter how open they allowed themselves to be with one another in this way, neither side would win trying to convince one another.

He fell back on his haunches with a great sigh. _This . . . imprinting bullshit. It hasn't happened to you but it could, right? And to me. And—_

 _—to me,_ Sarah's voice whispered.

Julie sat next to Lee. _I don't know,_ she told them both. _It's supposed to be rare. It didn't happen with anyone in my great-grandmother's pack, but then there were only three of them. Maybe that's why it wasn't in the journals._

_So it's just Sam and Jade so far?_

_So far. There's seven of us now,_ she said miserably. _More, if the bloodsuckers stay._

A shiver ran over him. Sarah, too, as they both considered it.

Then Lee shook himself, banishing that thought as he got to his feet again. _Jules, I can't think about this now. It's just . . . It's—_

 _—too much,_ Julie finished for him.

He huffed irritably. _That's going to get really annoying at some point. Finishing each other's sentences._

Julie pawed the ground, still unable to look at him and the raw emotion splayed over his face. _It can be helpful, for coordinating and stuff. The rest of the time, you just kind of get used to it like everything else._

He wasn't appeased by that. He was only just coming to terms with his loss of privacy. He didn't want to get used to _any_ part of his new life. He just wanted to get back to the reservation, wanted to be out of this body.

He turned away from her and started towards home at the thought, every inch of him radiating how so utterly drained and defeated he felt.

And Julie — she couldn't help him. All she could do was follow.


	23. xxiii

* * *

_xxiii._

_the wolves came and went and we're still standing_   
_maren morris, "the bones (with hozier)"_

* * *

**(Julie)**

Twenty hours. Twenty hours, and Lee was back on his feet again.

He hovered in the doorway of her box bedroom, its frame far too small for his sad, tired brown eyes and hulking stature, looking back at her as if he was finally about to cry.

In all the years she had known him, in all the months they had spent nearly every day together, Julie had never seen him cry. He hadn't cried when she'd heard him say Sam's name for the first time, that day she'd dragged him to the scrapyard and half-expected that he would. He hadn't cried when he told her about his fears of their age difference, of being alone; he hadn't even cried in anger when he'd been so furious that he'd kicked over the lawn chair.

She'd thought he'd had the rage of a wolf back then, too.

The fact remained. Lee lashed out, yes, but he never _cried_. He all but ran in the other direction when someone else did.

Julie shifted on the single mattress, patting the space beside her. His tears would come soon enough, of that much she was sure. "Come here."

He swallowed harshly, hesitant, and for an awful moment she worried that, despite being pack, bonded as they had been before, perhaps a hard line had been drawn between them like there never had been before. Perhaps she had assumed . . . But his shoulders dropped when she held out her arm for him, and soon he had shut the door behind him and was closing the distance between them.

He sank down onto the sheets and leant heavily against her on his side. No. Nothing had changed, not really.

And even if it had, Julie owed no explanations for it. Not about Lee.

She ran her fingers through his hair, feeling him deflate completely. He was already completely dry from the shower she'd thrown him into, his short hair sticking up in odd angles from where he'd rubbed the towel over it. And the pants she'd put out for him — old sweats the twins had left behind — were a little small, the material stretched thin over his thighs and riding high above his ankles that hung off the end of the bed, but he hardly seemed to notice or care.

"At least we won't have to cut it," she said, smiling when she lightly scratched her nails over his scalp and he all but purred like a cat underneath her touch. "Jade and Emma had to pull half the forest out of my hair when I phased, and then they just hacked it all off anyway."

Lee didn't answer, but then Julie didn't expect him to. She may have broken records by finding her legs so quickly, but afterwards she hadn't been able to find her voice for nearly ten hours. It was a damn near-miracle Lee had been able to stand at all after what she'd just put him through.

If Julie remembered one thing about her first phase, it was crying when her sisters had cut her hair. She'd only ever had her hair cut once before that, when she was nine and her brothers were twelve and their father had died. It had been a physical reminder of their loss, symbolic of their sadness. She supposed joining the pack, becoming who she was now, that had been a loss in itself. A loss of an old life she could scarcely stand to dwell on.

But Lee had never conformed. He so rarely allowed his hair to grow past his ears, and Julie had long since noticed that when it did he never kept it that way for long. She'd never asked him why. Had never thought to.

He sighed long and hard next to her, exhausted, his broad chest expanding and then deflating against her side, his breath washing over her like something molten. And then he was wriggling down on the pillow, and rolling over, settling himself between her legs. When he sighed again, she thought it sounded something akin to content.

Her fingers found his hair again, just as his hands snaked along her waist, arms circling her. Only then did he seem to hesitate, his breath hitching in sudden uncertainty. Almost as if he'd only just realised what he'd done.

"It's normal," she told him quietly, soothingly. Her fingers did not stop in their path, tracing their way down to the back of his neck. "Phasing, being pack — things get a little blurred." As blurred, as non-existent the lines had always been between the two of them. "We share so much with each other, it's almost like . . . Sometimes, I find myself leaning on Emma without thinking about it, or she'll reach over and put her arm over Jade's shoulders, and . . . It doesn't mean anything. It's just necessary, you know? You don't have to feel bad about it."

Lee didn't answer, but she knew he understood; he relaxed again, slowly but surely, and he was unconscious within the minute.

But as tired as she was herself, bone-weary and miserable, Julie couldn't find sleep — not for a long time, not even after she'd watched the sun set on yet another day and Lee had started snoring quietly against her leg.

She leant back against the headboard and closed her eyes, Lee's warmth a solid reassurance around her.

She wondered when the funeral would be. Tomorrow, or the day after? She wondered if they would go. If Sarah would even have the chance to decide, unless she managed to phase back. Perhaps knowing that her brother had would spur her on. Or maybe . . . maybe it would make it harder, not having him there beside her.

But Lee was in no fit state. He was at his most vulnerable; he couldn't look after himself, not right now. So Julie had urged him on after that first patch of bare skin had appeared until he was face-down in the dirt, no colour in his cheeks, his eyes cold and empty. Even if he hadn't been pack, it still would have been an instinct to help him back up. Emma, Jade, and Sam — and even Paula — would do the same for Sarah if she phased back tonight.

Julie just hoped that it would be the last time they would have to do these things for each other. Sarah was thirteen-years-old, for heaven's sake. If Beau had any sense about him left in that cold corpse of his, then he'd make sure they were all gone by the end of the week and this — _this_ would never have to happen again.

And if they didn't leave . . . Julie was certain that she wouldn't be alone in calling for a war when pre-teens joined the pack. She'd be the first over that damned treaty line, her sisters and Lee not far behind her. Not even Sam, not even the Council would be able to stop them.

Julie would assume Alpha before they tried.

The thought did not scare her as much as she expected it would. Rather, it came with a sort of acceptance — because Julie knew without doubt that she would always do what needed to be done and protect the tribe like she had been born to do. If Sam and the Council failed them, then Julie would protect the pack. Even if it saw her doing what she had so far sworn she would not, she would lead them. She would protect them. Protect Lee, and their family.

Her eyes burned behind their lids, and sleep finally tugged at her. She followed it gladly.

* * *

**(Leland)**

Leland was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes when he found Jules in the garage.

So engrossed in the work was she, a beat-up cassette in her pocket and earphones playing music which he could hear the heavy beat from, no thanks to his new abilities, that she didn't notice him at first.

She wore a thick, black band over her head that kept her short and untidy hair out of her eyes as she worked, but it also seemed to call attention to her features in a way he'd never noticed before. And it struck him something stupid — especially when she finally looked up and noticed him, allowing her joy to show with the widest of grins.

She yanked her earphones out. "Hey, you're awake!"

Lee dragged his gaze away from her face, focusing instead on the trail of mess she'd left throughout the garage, leading from her beloved Volkswagen and all the way to the workbench.

"Oh, yeah." There was barest hint of shame in her voice. "I thought I'd give myself a head start on fitting this cylinder." She scratched the back of her neck with a spanner as she turned her eyes downwards and looked again at her workbench, her brows creasing in annoyance — and disapproval. "I wanted to have this part done before I got the cylinder, and now I remember why I've been putting it off."

The cylinder. It felt like weeks, not days, since he'd made that drive to get it. "Why?" he asked, far too croakily for his liking. The last time he'd used his voice, he'd been shouting at his parents — at his mom.

"Because it's so fucking boring, that's why," she said plainly, and Lee choked, torn between a laugh and surprise. "When I start my own garage, I'm going to employ people to do this kind of donkey work for me."

"Uh—" He cleared the lingering croak from his throat and waved a hand at whatever it was she had fixed to her wooden bench. "I can help. If you want."

Julie grinned at him again. "You're sweet. And I'd take you up on that, if I knew you had a clue what you were doing."

"Just tell me what to do, kid." He thought that he'd be glad for the distraction, in all honesty. He'd almost be able to pretend that nothing had changed, if he tried hard enough.

Julie's head cocked slightly as she considered him. A hint of a knowing smirk pulled at the corner of her lips before she caught herself and bit down on it. "Alright, then. Can you siphon the last of that brake fluid from the reservoir—" she jerked her chin to the Rabbit "—and remove the booster?"

He held her stare, but didn't answer. Maybe he could persevere with it until she realised he was doing it all wrong and she freaked out. He'd only have to fake it long enough that—

Julie laughed, shaking her head. "Don't worry about it. I was kidding," she teased, pointing her spanner at his head. "I can see the gears whirring, up there. You'd end up bleeding the oil or the whole cooling system, or something, just to prove a point, and then I'd have to spend the rest of the day in here fixing whatever you broke."

"Ouch." He faked a wince, hand coming to his chest. It was easy to be with her, easy to forget. It had been so long since he'd heard her laugh so freely. Like their world wasn't in pieces around them after all.

She just laughed again, rolling her eyes. "You can help me clear up, if you really want. I was only going to work on this for a little bit, anyway."

"Why, what else did you have in mind? I'd rather just stay in here, if it's all the same to you." He shrugged. "I honestly don't care if this is what we do all day."

"I know you don't," she said. She put down her spanner and wiped her greasy hands over her pants, her face quickly losing all its traces of humour. "I just thought . . . Thing is, I saw Bonnie earlier."

There was a heavy pause, so awful that Lee knew what she was going to say before she said it. He wondered if she had been building up to it, easing him in with her smiles and her laughter. Worrying about his reaction, again.

She sighed. "The funeral is this afternoon. Charlie's already picked her up so they can be with your dad this morning."

He had expected her to say it, and yet he _hadn't_ expected . . . Not so soon. But of course, it would be. They did not wait to bury their dead, not like the palefaces.

"And I was going to come and wake you up if you slept much longer, because I didn't know if you'd want to go," Julie continued quietly. "Or . . . Well, I don't think Sarah's going to phase back in time to make it, so I wondered maybe if you'd decide to stay with her instead. Or you and I could just . . . I don't know. Do something else."

He swallowed thickly, tampering down on his anger which rose far too quickly and without warning. It was not her fault. "Like what?"

"Whatever you want."

He rubbed a rough hand over his face. He hadn't been to a funeral since Mr. Black's, and knew there was nothing in his wardrobe at home that his mother would approve of to wear at her funeral. A whole lot of khakis, cut-offs and faded t-shirts. Nothing that would fit.

His dad probably had an extra suit to spare. Maybe. Not that his clothes would fit, either.

Regardless, Lee couldn't bring himself to even consider asking Saul for a damn thing — even for something as simple as a suit for a funeral. Not after what he'd done. What his dad undoubtedly now blamed him for.

Julie saw the look on his face, and Lee knew from the crease along her brow that she had caught onto what he was thinking. Because she understood him, and always had. Now more so than ever before.

"I know it'll be a bit of a tight fit, but the twins left enough of their old clothes in their wardrobe, if you want to go," she told him, her footsteps quiet as she slowly came towards him. "There's probably a shirt, or a jacket . . . or, I don't know, maybe I can go to your house—"

His hand reached for hers, and held tight. He couldn't bear the thought of her coming home again with news of his dad, repeating something he might have said. "No. Don't."

She nodded once. "Okay."

"What time is it?" _The funeral,_ he couldn't say. _What time is the funeral?_

"Four o'clock. We've got time, honey — you don't have to decide right away." She squeezed his fingers, and the contact grounded him. _Necessary,_ she'd called it. "Nobody will think less of you if you decide not to go."

"No, I — I have to. I just . . ." He swallowed again, blinking away the image of his mom falling, always falling, over and over. "What if I—"

"You won't phase, Lee."

He looked down at her, still unsure. "How do you know?"

"You can handle it, I know it. And I'll be there with you." Julie smiled, sad and soft, looking up at him with a kindness he did not deserve. He did not deserve her. "We all will. We'll help you. Sarah, too."

"I don't need their help," he bit out a little harsher than he intended. But it was true. He didn't need any of them, didn't want any of them. He just wanted—

"I'll be there with you," Julie said again, because she knew.

She always did.


	24. xxiv

_xxiv_ _._

_the worst part is there's no-one else to blame_   
_sia, "breathe me"_

* * *

**(Leland)**

"I can run them over, if you want."

Lee followed Julie's gaze through the windshield, towards the crying women who she was glaring at. Lee had never met them — or perhaps he had, and he just did not remember.

He couldn't remember much of anything. He couldn't remember carrying his mom alongside his dad and his uncles, couldn't remember whether or not his sister had proved everyone all wrong and had managed to be there with them. He couldn't remember whether or not he had faced his dad with clear focus at any point, if Saul had looked him in the eye — if there had been any blame within his face. Any hatred.

All Lee remembered was that Julie had kept her warm hand in his throughout, never flinching as he gripped her tightly enough that his knuckles were white and her fingers probably ached.

She leant back against the worn seats in her mom's truck, fingers still twined with his even now. He still wouldn't — couldn't — let her go.

"That depends," he answered her after a long moment. "Would we have to go to their funerals, too?"

"No. No more funerals." She still hadn't said much about Holly — about what had happened, what he had done. He didn't know if he wanted her to or not. "Anyway, I'd be on the run for their murder. It would kind of be bad manners to show my face at their funerals, right?"

"I'm coming."

Wherever she went, he'd go too.

"Duh," she said. "I wouldn't leave you behind. You'd have no choice, anyway; you'd be an accomplice, right?"

He almost managed a smile. "Where would we run to? Canada?"

Julie tilted her head thoughtfully, pursing her lips as she considered the crying women still. "I was thinking more of a country with no extradition. Do you know of any?"

"Don't ask me. You're the brains of this operation."

"Well, yeah, obviously. You're the brawn," she said, as if it were the most normal thing in the word. And it was for them, to be talking like this, and it was exactly what he needed whilst in the middle of this chaos that was now his life. Everything had changed around him, but Julie hadn't.

They were silent for a while then, watching together as more people filed across the lawn, all in black, all talking quietly with each other and bracing themselves for the sadness awaiting them inside of the house. There were pictures of his mom and their family in there, remnants of the life Holly had made for them.

Lee wasn't sure he'd be able to face it. He hadn't been home yet.

Julie tipped her head back on the headrest and sighed. "This blows. Do you wanna get out of here and get cheeseburgers?"

She was giving him a choice — to stay or leave, to face his father on his own terms, as she had been all day. His choice. But he said, "There's probably food inside, you know. If you can make it without running anyone down."

"I know," she said, tugging at the end of her black dress with her free hand. She looked unhappily at it, uncomfortable. "But if Elliott's had anything to do with the spread then I'll be going hungry."

"Elliott?"

"Yeah, he cooks now. But he's really bad at it. Lucky we don't get sick, because I would have died about six times over already from food poisoning or something."

Lee couldn't help the scowl that gripped his face. With all that had gone on, he hadn't even thought about that part of this new life. How much time Julie must have spent with Sam and, by extension, his cousin — or what Elliott's role had become in all of this, being an imprint.

Imprint. Fucking imprinting.

Lee hadn't thought much about that, either. Had downright refused to, actually, after Julie had told him about it.

And he refused to now. Instead he asked, "We don't get sick?"

"Nope." Julie's lips popped. "You know, we could drive into Forks for something to eat instead. If you wanted, that is. Or we could go further, I guess. It doesn't matter whether it's Port Angeles or Seattle, I suppose. I haven't been up there in a while."

Lee tightened his grip on her fingers. She was warm, whole. Alive. And he loved her for it — for the choice she continued to give him, knowing what was awaiting them inside of the house. What was awaiting them for the rest of their lives, unless they left like she was offering. But—

"I want to go," he told her, "— to all of those places. Wherever you want, kid. I just — I need to do this first. I have to."

Julie let loose a long breath and nodded once. She put her other hand over his and squeezed gently, fixing her stare once again at the women who were clinging onto each other as fiercely as Lee had been clinging to her throughout the day.

She frowned. "Who are they, anyway?"

"Beats me. But don't leave me alone with them. Don't leave me alone with anyone." He didn't know what to do with all the people inside of his house who wanted to say _I'm sorry_ and give him unwanted advice on how to grieve. What was it they expected him to do with their sorrow?

Julie squeezed his hand again, because she always knew what he was asking even if he could not say the words outright. "You're not going to phase," she said, looking at him now. "You wanna go in through the back?"

He nodded, eternally grateful that she was here with him, that she understood what it was he was never able to voice. "Yeah, but — just — not yet. I know I have to go in at some point, but can we . . . Can we just stay here a minute?"

"Sure, honey." She did not let go of his hand. "Sure we can. Whatever you want."

* * *

Inside, it was just as bad as Lee had thought it would be.

Someone had tidied the destruction he and his sister had left behind as they'd made their escape. It almost looked as if nothing had happened at all — as if Sarah hadn't knocked over all those chairs after their mother had fallen right there. Right there, on that carpet, before she'd died.

Julie steered him out of the hallway, keeping him away from the stairs, the living room, and just about every other place she had undoubtedly seen in his memories which she knew would trigger something awful.

She seemed to deem the kitchen a safe enough place, and it was there the rest of the pack gathered (or, at least, most of them) in the form of Emma, Paula and Jade.

Lee assumed Sam was with Sarah, until Jade drained her glass of juice and quietly said to them all, "I've got to get back. I promised her that I would, so she could see — you know, so she knows what it was like."

Beside him, leaning against the counter and surveying the room, Julie silently lifted her chin in affirmation — the most she was prepared to give from where she was standing sentinel at Lee's side, her gaze steely enough that hardly anyone had dared approach him. The worst he'd received so far were more sympathetic smiles and tears than he knew what to do with — until Jules caught their eye and they turned away.

(Or maybe it was the five of them, huddled up as they were, intimidating with their hard faces and sense of _togetherness_. Whatever the reason, he was grateful for it at that moment.)

Jade put her glass into the sink and looked at him. "You want me to tell her anything?"

Leland blinked, coming out of his reverie. "Who?"

"Sarah."

"Oh. No." There was nothing he could say, nothing he knew he could do to make it better except tell her that it wasn't her fault — but he also knew that Sarah wouldn't believe him if he tried.

He did feel guilty, though, that Jade had likely sat through the service and memorised the whole thing for his sister, when he hadn't thought to do so himself. He caught Jade's arm before she left. "Thank you. I didn't . . . Thanks."

Jade Cameron's smile was small but kind. "No problem."

They all watched her go, falling back into silence. Emma and Paula exchanged a few words occasionally. He didn't hear them, not really. It was hard enough keeping his focus as it was, thinking about his sister and then his father. Wondering where he was, where Bonnie and Charlie were. Lee couldn't recall seeing them.

But then, that didn't mean much — he could still hardly recall anything at all. He would have to watch Jade's memories, too. All their memories.

"If Jade's with Sarah, where's Sam?" he asked no-one in particular.

"She took Elliott home. S'pose she'll go back to Sarah after, too," Julie muttered, and he thought there was something like disapproval in her tone whilst she people-watched. But, still, Lee couldn't help but think, _Good._

He still wasn't ready to face _that_ yet. And maybe Sam knew it.

Emma and Paula spoke quietly again, to Julie this time. Lee felt her shrug against his arm before they walked away but, even with his keen hearing that was still continually throwing him off balance, he couldn't have repeated what was said; he was too busy staring over the people crammed into the kitchen, the hallway, spilling into the front rooms and the yard.

Leland looked at Quil over the sea of heads as she tried to squeeze her way through with her grandmother, and the girl threw a wobbly smile in his direction. She was in a dress, too, and could have been a dead-ringer for the girls of the pack save for her long, flowing hair and puppy fat still in her cheeks.

He felt Julie tense at the same time he saw Quil's smile drop when she noticed who it was standing with him. She faltered a step, but was hurried on by Mrs. Ateara.

Left with little choice, she was soon standing before them.

Julie pushed herself up from leaning against the counter and straightened her back as Mrs. Ateara passed them with a silent nod, her weathered-face still fierce in its old age. But Quil stopped. She stared at them, a mixture of hurt and anger and upset setting into her features. And she appeared as if she wanted to say something, her mouth opening and closing, cheeks reddening with frustration, except she couldn't get the words out.

Not until Jules broke and said, "Quil—" and the girl finally snapped.

"How come he still gets to be your friend, but you ignore me?"

"It's not like that—"

"You're my cousin," she hissed, wary of an audience even as her betrayal leaked through. "That's more important than — than—" Tears threatened. "First Emma, now you, and of all people, _he_ gets to be in your stupid secret gang—"

"I'm sorry," Julie whispered. It was all she could offer.

"Whatever." Quil turned away, then halted, remembering herself. The anger in her eyes quietened a fraction. "I'm sorry about your mom, Lee. She was really nice."

He felt Julie's hand on his arm as he nodded, and she didn't let go until her cousin had stalked off after her grandmother. Julie let her arm drop, but only far enough to be able to reach for his hand.

She sighed miserably. "I hate this."

"You think she'll—?"

"Yes," Julie said. "Soon. We've been waiting for her for nearly a week, now. Today probably hasn't helped any. I knew it'd be bad; Emma said earlier that maybe — maybe with her mom gone, Quil's mom gone and — my dad, and your mom . . . Maybe Quil thought it'd change things."

Lee didn't answer. He hadn't considered it, that in one way or another they'd all lost a parent and perhaps Quil — after being so left out and forgotten by her friends — had hoped . . . His shoulders sagged.

"I know," Julie muttered. "I know. But it won't be long now. It'll be easier when she's one of us. It'll be fine."

She said it like she was convincing herself, and Lee could only stand with her in solidarity as she held his hand and leaned against his arm, looking up at him.

"You okay?"

Lee stared unseeingly at nothing. "I hate this, too."

"You wanna get out of here?"

"What's the point of these things?" he asked instead of replying, not caring who heard him. "All we've got is a fridge-full of food and a bunch of people who don't know what to do with themselves." He was so . . . so _annoyed_ at how _sad_ everyone was around him. His mom was better than this. She deserved more than crying, more than awkward silences. "This isn't — it's not exactly a celebration, is it?"

Julie squeezed his shaking hand, grounding him. "I think it's more about comfort. People, they just want to be together when someone dies. To support the family, and—"

"I don't feel very comforted," he bit out. "I feel — I feel—"

"Breathe, Lee," she whispered so that only he could hear. "You're okay."

He turned away from the crowd, facing the counter, focusing on the glass Jade had left in the sink amongst all the plates scraped clean and the discarded cutlery, counting them. He started over three times before he could count every bit of silverware and mismatching ceramic and porcelain, Julie rubbing his back all the while.

To an onlooker, he probably looked as if he were about to be sick. He didn't care. He needed — he wanted—

"Come on. Let's go," Julie murmured once the worst of the tremors had passed.

Lee didn't argue.

They left the way they had arrived — through the back — and slipped into the yard. He instantly felt better, out in the open, where there were just as many people milling around but where it didn't feel as cramped. There were only three-hundred-or-so people who lived in La Push, and it felt as if every single one of them were right here. He'd even caught sight of a few faces from Neah Bay.

There was only one face which stood out amongst them all, and that was Charlie Swan's. He stood near the gate with Bonnie, both of them looking as bad as Lee felt. They seemed older than he'd seen them last, their smiles worn as they welcomed people in and thanked them for coming on behalf of the Clearwaters.

He supposed that was Bonnie's job, as Chief. But it was his job, too. Another thing he had failed to do.

He managed a quiet thank you as he passed Bonnie and Charlie, but didn't stop to see their reaction and allowed Julie to pull him onwards, away to safety before his control ended up splintering into pieces again.

He would be better tomorrow. He would. He would do better. For Sarah, for—

Julie sucked in a sharp breath, her hand impossibly tightening around his. Lee looked down at her questioningly as her head whipped back and forth, to her mom's borrowed truck parked against the curb of the street and back to the house as if weighing something up, cursing violently underneath her breath.

"What—" Lee followed her line of sight back to the house, where his father was standing at the front door — doing the same thing Bonnie and Charlie were by the gate, his eyes remarkably clear and his shoulders straight as he spoke to the Littleseas. But Lee saw the illusion for what it was. Saw the hard lines that only deepened when Saul caught his eye, the simmering outrage there.

Jules tugged on his hand, but Lee remained firm.

He had failed, yes, but he would do this. He would face his father, if only because Holly would have wanted it after he'd been shirking his responsibilities.

Saul took slow, deliberate steps towards him, glaring the whole way, until he was close enough to say quietly, "Why are you here?"

Lee's stomach dropped. He'd never won an argument against his father yet, not once. If Sarah was the spitting image of Holly, in nature and looks and passion, then Lee was the image of his father — they were all fire.

"She's my mom."

"Was," Saul corrected, glowering still. "She was. Then you killed her."

Lee forgot what it was to breathe as an inhuman snarl was unleashed over the world. Every voice nearby quietened underneath it.

Julie dropped his hand and took a step forward, her lip still curled, and suddenly — suddenly, Emma and Paula were there beside her, a solid barrier between him and his father. Flanking her, summoned by that god-awful rip-roaring sound.

The life drained out of Saul's face.

He looked as if he were about to say something, but then he seemed to think better of it. He pressed his lips in a tight, thin line and turned away with a hard, derisive scoff.

Julie stared after him as he stormed over to Bonnie and Charlie by the gate. Everything about her was cold — cold with lethal fury as her brown eyes watched his father walk away, undoubtedly tracking Saul's every movement as if she were planning where to strike first.

Lee reached for her hand again, pushing his way to stand between her and Emma. "Don't, please," he said quietly, hating how so . . . so _broken_ and defeated he sounded to himself. So defeated that he wasn't even in danger of phasing, because he'd _known_ — he'd known all along that Saul would blame him for the loss of Holly. Just as he blamed himself.

Saul was right. He shouldn't have come. He should have taken Julie up on her offer to leave — to go far away, even if it was for only a day. Longer. Whatever he wanted.

Julie just growled underneath her breath in response, but her fingers gripped his tightly enough that he felt pain in his knuckles.

Paula put a hand on Julie's other shoulder. "Let it go," the girl muttered, low enough that only the four of them could hear. Slowly, life around them was starting again. Hesitantly. Uncertain voices rising, careful looks being thrown their way.

It was another long, taut minute before Julie spoke. Her voice was quiet, dark. "Pack a bag."

He breathed in, out. "And go where?"

Jules didn't blink, her eyes fixing again on the spot where Saul had retreated. Her hand gripped his, and if Lee had to hazard a guess, he would have said that the contact might have been the only thing that had stopped her from following the man. "I don't care. You're not staying here anymore."

"I can't just—"

"Do it, Leland."

Something foreign settled over Lee's limbs which he knew he could not struggle against, something like _will_ and _power_ , and he wondered whether this was what it felt like to receive an order from an Alpha. _The_ Alpha. If this was what it would feel like once Sam began laying down her directives upon him.

He would strain against those orders, when the time came. He knew it.

But he wouldn't, couldn't do that when Julie was the one giving them. She was impossible to refuse.

Lee wasn't yet decided if she understood the effect she had on the pack, if she noticed the way they all revolved so naturally around her. He wasn't the one who they had all gathered around half an hour ago in the kitchen, after all — and it most certainly wasn't him they consulted before doing anything. They were led by Sam, yes — but, seeing the four girls together, Lee had quickly realised that it was Julie whose every movement they watched out of the corner of their eyes. It was Julie who was the axis of their world. She was the moon commanding their tides.

The pack seemed oblivious to it. Or, perhaps, they were just so used to it already. Either way, they didn't blink when Julie moved. They just followed. Blindly. And when Julie spoke, they all stopped — even Paula — to listen with rapt attention.

Lee swallowed thickly, his father's words still ringing in his ears and Julie's authority settling deep into his bones. "I — I can't leave Sarah."

It was not an argument, but he needed her to know that Sarah was a condition in this. He could leave his father — he'd do anything Julie asked, anything, so long as he didn't have to leave his baby sister to shoulder the worst of this.

"Fine," Jules said tersely. "Em, go and pack a bag for him. Grab anything."

Emma nodded once, and disappeared into the house.

"He's right, you know," Paula said quietly before Lee could ensure his sister wouldn't have to face her father's rejection, too — because if Saul blamed _him_ , then. . . "You can't just take him—"

Julie's head snapped to Paula. "He's my pack."

Paula sighed, exactly as if this was an argument she'd had before — and Lee suspected that it was. "He's not _your_ pack, Jules. You're not Al—"

"I know I'm not," she snapped, and the two girls glared at each other for so long that it almost seemed as if they were having a private conversation, arguing with each other on another frequency.

Paula looked away first. "I don't think you do," she said finally, but her voice was more resigned than anything else. "Sam's not going to like this."

"Somehow I think she'd agree with me on this one," Julie replied coolly, her voice returning to the deathly quietness that promised retribution — because if Sam didn't agree with her, then she would make Sam pay hell for it. Lee knew that tone of her voice well enough to understand what she meant.

Paula shook her head. "Whatever, kid," she said. The word didn't sound like it did when he said it; Paula made it an insult. "It's your funeral." She sighed. "I'll just go and help Emma then, shall I? Dig all our graves while I'm at it."

Then Paula did something he did not expect. She looked at him, her eyes missing the hatred he had come to expect from her, and she asked with a smirk, "You need anything in particular packed? Teddy bear? Comfort blanket?"

Lee shook his head, beyond speech — though not because of her taunts or heartless words.

She snorted, and walked away.

It was a few minutes before Julie's heart calmed beside him, and she brushed her hair out of her face with her free, shaky hand. It wasn't until they were sitting back in the truck, and one of her hands was gripping keys hard enough that Lee wondered whether it might draw blood that she said, "Sorry."

"S'ok."

She closed her eyes, shutting out the world as she pulled in a deep breath. "No. It's not."

Lee couldn't argue. Instead, he said, "I meant it about Sarah. If that's how he feels about _me,_ then I can't leave her here."

"So she comes too."

"She's thirteen, Jules — that's — that's basically kidnapping. I'm eighteen; he can't fight me if I choose to leave, but—"

"Do you?" she asked then, opening her eyes and examining him closely. "Is this what you want?"

"I don't really feel like I have a choice—"

"You don't," she said flatly.

"—but yes," he continued, even as his lips quirked at her no-nonsense tone. The Alpha's tone. "Yes, I'd leave anyway. Until Dad . . . Well, until then, at least."

"Until then—" she said, squeezing his fingers, "—whenever that is — you don't have to worry, okay? We'll figure it out."

"I — okay." He let out a breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding. "Thanks."

She nodded. "Pack," she said as if that one word explained everything he'd ever need to know.

Lee nodded back, because now he knew it did.


End file.
